Nursing interventions that humanise care for patients affected by COVID-19 in isolation units: An integrative review.

BACKGROUND: During the global pandemic, the increasing number of hospitalised patients affected by COVID-19 led to a shortage of nurses. This situation can cause nurses to focus their care on managing the acute aspects of the disease, neglecting interventions that can humanise their practices and improve quality of care. This review aims to identify nurses' interventions that can humanise care for patients affected by COVID-19 in isolation units. METHODS: Whittemore and Knafl's integrative review methodology was used to structure and conduct the review. The literature search was conducted using CINAHL, MEDLINE, Nursing & Allied Health, MedicLatina, Sciencedirect, LILACS, and PubMed databases. Researchers performed the final search in January 2021. RESULTS: A total of seven articles were included in this review. Interventions by nursing staff that may humanise care for patients affected by COVID-19 in isolation units fall within two themes: "expressive dimension interventions", related to the establishment of communication with patients and their families, providing psychological comfort, shared decision-making and patient education; and "instrumental dimension interventions", associated with providing patients physical comfort, and symptom management. CONCLUSION: This review provides insight into both "expressive dimension" and "instrumental dimension" of nursing interventions that may humanise care to patients affected by COVID-19 in isolation units. This knowledge will allow nurses to improve their care practices, providing more holistic, humanised care for these patients.

A Case of Severe COVID-19 in a Patient with Good's Syndrome.

Good's syndrome is a rare adult-onset combined immunodeficiency. The association of hypogammaglobulinaemia with a history of recurrent infectious or autoimmune manifestations in a middle-aged patient with evidence of a mediastinal mass should lead to the clinical suspicion of Good's syndrome. The mortality rate associated with infectious complications is high. Thus, although it is rare, the disease should be diagnosed early so that proper treatment can be started. Thymectomy and immunoglobulin replacement are the main therapeutic strategies. We describe the case of a patient with a history of thymoma and recurrent respiratory infections, with a late diagnosis of Good's syndrome in the context of severe organizing pneumonia secondary to COVID-19. LEARNING POINTS: Infection is the leading cause of mortality in patients with Good's syndrome.Early recognition of this rare disease and substitutive therapy with immunoglobulin may have an important impact on prognosis.Due to its rarity, data on Good's syndrome are scarce and its association with severe COVID-19 onset is still unclear.To the best of our knowledge, this is the fifth case report of COVID-19 in a patient with Good's syndrome, the third with a favourable outcome.