Nurses' experiences of being recruited and transferred to a new sub-intensive care unit devoted to COVID-19 patients.

AIM: To describe the experiences of Italian nurses who have been urgently and compulsorily allocated to a newly established COVID-19 sub-intensive care unit. BACKGROUND: In the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, no studies have documented the experience of nurses urgently reallocated to a newly created unit. METHOD: A qualitative descriptive study. Twenty-four nurses working in a sub-intensive care unit created for COVID-19 patients participated in four focus groups. Audio-recorded interviews were verbatim-transcribed; then, a thematic analysis was performed. RESULTS: The experience of nurses was summarized along three lines: (a) 'becoming a frontline nurse', (b) 'living a double-faced professional experience' and (c) 'advancing in nursing practice'. CONCLUSIONS: Nurses who experienced being mandatorily recruited and urgently reallocated to a COVID-19 unit lived through a mix of negative feelings in the early stages, a double-faced situation during the episode and, at the end, the perception of global growth as a person, as a team and as a professional. IMPLICATION FOR NURSING MANAGEMENT: Nurse managers could play a key role in identifying and preparing nurses in advance to mitigate their concerns and their sense of unpreparedness. The value attributed to nursing care should be promoted both during and after the current COVID-19 pandemic.

Optimizing Protein Intake and Nitrogen Balance (OPINiB) in Adult Critically Ill Patients: A Study Protocol for a Randomized Controlled Trial.

BACKGROUND: Adequate nutrition of critically ill patients plays a key role in the modulation of metabolic response to stress. OBJECTIVE: This paper presents the development of a protocol for a randomized controlled trial (RCT) aimed at comparing clinical outcomes of patients in the intensive care unit (ICU) administered with standard and protein-fortified diet. Together with the RCT study protocol, the results of the observational analysis conducted to assess the feasibility of the RCT are presented. METHODS: An RCT on adult patients admitted to ICU and undergoing mechanical ventilation in the absence of renal or hepatic failure will be conducted. Patients enrolled will be randomized with an allocation rate of 1:1 at standard diet versus protein-fortified diet. The estimated sample size is 19 per arm, for a total of 38 patients to be randomized. RESULTS: Enrollment began in January 2017. In the feasibility study, 14 patients were enrolled. Protein administration increased significantly (P<.001) over time but was significantly lower compared to that recommended (P<.001). Blood urea nitrogen significantly increased (P<.03) over the period of observation. Such increased catabolism resulted in negative cumulative nitrogen balance (NB) in all patients, and some patients presented with a more negative NB compared to the others. CONCLUSIONS: Results of the feasibility study clearly confirmed that protein provision in ICU patients is below that recommended and that this results in impaired NB. The emerging of an interindividual variability in NB will be further analyzed in the RCT. TRIAL REGISTRATION: ClinicalTrials.gov NCT02990065; https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT02990065 (Archived by WebCite at http://www.webcitation.org/6prsqZdRM).

Nursing Activity Score for estimating nursing care need in intensive care units: findings from a face and content validity study.

AIM: To re-evaluate the face and content validity of the Nursing Activity Score currently adopted in evaluating activities that best describe workloads in intensive care units and their weight in describing average nursing time consumption. BACKGROUND: The Nursing Activity Score calculates the amount of nursing time that each patient will require over the next 24 hours. It has been widely used around the world since its first validation in 2003. However, no re-evaluation of its validity with regard to the advancements achieved in intensive care units nursing care has been documented to date. METHOD: A research project was undertaken from 2012 to 2015, aimed at critically evaluating and validating this tool in the current context of Italian intensive care units nursing care. The 23 items were translated forward and backward into the Italian language, then a panel of 10 experts in critical care evaluated the face validity. Content validity was evaluated through focus groups involving seven critical care expert registered nurses. FINDINGS: The Nursing Activity Score instrument has been considered as not fully adequate to measure current intensive care units nursing activities and their weightings have been considered not fully adequate to score average nursing time consumption. From the content validity process, lack of adequacy has emerged with respect to the concept of nursing care underpinning the tool, the interventions included, its capability to predict the nursing resources needed, advancements achieved in intensive care units nurses' roles and competences, and the contextual factors that may influence consumption of nursing time. CONCLUSIONS: Development of the Nursing Activity Score tool both conceptually and in its structure, in view of the innovations that have occurred in the context of intensive care units, is necessary to continue to have a common tool to help clinicians and managers to capture accurately and compare nursing care required by patients in critical care settings. IMPLICATIONS FOR NURSING MANAGEMENT: There is a need to revise the Nursing Activity Score tool, enabling its use in estimating nursing workloads in current Italian intensive care units practice. A taskforce of clinical nurses and nursing managers, capable of protecting the valuable original Nursing Activity Score project and to advance its further development is recommended.

Delirium among critically ill adults: evaluation of the psychometric properties of the Italian 'Confusion Assessment Method for the Intensive Care Unit'.

OBJECTIVES: To determine the psychometric properties of the Italian version of the Confusion Assessment Method for the Intensive Care Unit (CAM-ICU), a clinical assessment tool to detect delirium among Intensive Care Unit patients. DESIGN: Validation study. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY: Fifty-seven patients admitted to three medical and surgical Intensive Care Units were recruited. During the study interval two trained examiners performed independent delirium assessment by the CAM-ICU for a maximum of four times per patient. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Interrater reliability and internal consistency of the tool, which were measured using Cohen's κ and Cronbach's α coefficients respectively. FINDINGS: Seventy-two paired evaluations were collected. The 35% of the studied cohort tested positive for delirium. The Italian version of the CAM-ICU demonstrated a substantial interrater reliability (κ=0.76, p<0.0001) and a very good internal consistency (α=0.87, 95% confidence interval: 0.81-0.91). CONCLUSION: The Italian CAM-ICU was found to be a viable instrument by which to approach a standardised monitoring of delirium among Italian speaking ICU patients. The use of such tools may facilitate ICU physicians and nurses in detecting delirium, thus improving both quality and safety of care.