COMMUNICATIVE INTERACTION OF NURSES IN PERFORMING THE PROTOCOL OF PRIMARY ASSESSMENT OF A CRITICAL PATIENT (ABCDE)

Abstract

Introduction. The main emphasis of the article is the influence of the nurse’s communicative competence in the implementation of the protocol for the examination of a critical non-traumatized adult patient. Team interaction is perhaps the main component of the quality of emergency/urgent medical care. The transfer of information about changes in the patient’s condition, the correct and timely call for qualified medical care directly affects the survival of critical patients.

The aim of the study – analysis of the quality of nurse-physician, nurse-patient interaction in the care of a critical adult non-traumatized patient, and the impact on team interaction, department specifics and rotation of nurses from therapeutic departments to intensive care units and reception areas.

The main part. The study used chronometric measurement of nurses’ working time in therapeutic, surgical, anesthesiology and intensive care, and emergency departments of hospitals of different levels. The study included one cluster-level hospital and two general hospitals. A total of 40 nurses of different age groups, genders, and length of service in medical practice participated in the pilot study. The objectives of the analysis of the work of a nurse in the above-mentioned departments were to determine the frequency of a nurse’s visit to a patient and the duration of her stay at the patient’s bedside, the number of emergency admissions per day to the emergency department and the time spent by a critical patient in the department, the number of critical patients in the anesthesiology and intensive care unit and the frequency of progression and/or occurrence of a critical condition.

Conclusions. Communication for medical personnel is more than access to information, it is awareness of the situation, understanding of the patient’s current condition, the probability of the trajectory of movement when performing the ABCDE protocol and the prognostic possibility of stabilization. Communicative competence is an integral part of teamwork, which in turn ensures quality medical services. In the interaction of a nurse – doctor, nurse – patient is an integral part of team interaction with high-quality and two-way communication is implemented in the implementation of the ABCDE protocol for the examination of a critical patient, regardless of the specifics of the department.