Kan omvårdnadshandlingar orsaka EEG-förändringar hos neurokirurgiska intensivvårdspatienter? : En observationsstudie

Sammanfattning: ABSTRACT Background: An acquired brain injury can be classified as either a primary brain injury or a secondary brain injury. A secondary brain injury can also be caused by secondary clinical insults, such as epileptic seizures. To date, there have been no studies conducted on whether nursing interventions, such as bathing, oral care and suctioning the endotracheal tube, can cause epileptic seizures when caring for neurosurgical patients in the intensive care ward. Aim: The aim of this study was to explore whether nursing interventions can cause changes in a neurosurgical intensive care ward patient’s EEG pattern. Methods: Qualitative prospective observational study, using descriptive design (non-experimental). There was a total of 12 patients included in this study, all from a neurointensive care ward in the middle of Sweden. The patients were observed using continuous EEG monitoring with video recording all nursing interventions during 48 hours for each patient. The nursing interventions that were conducted were marked and categorised on a data log. The EEG was then analysed by a neurophysiologist, the results of which were also documented on the data log. Results: The total number of nursing interventions that have been observed for all 12 patients are 1170. Of these, 55 percent resulted in a change in the EEG pattern. The changes in an EEG pattern were categorized into one of four categories. The category with the largest percentage of documented changes was muscle artifact. The nursing interventions that resulted in the highest percentage of EEG pattern changes were – Everything at once, Oral care, Hygiene, Change of position and Suctioning the endotracheal tube. A correlation between the duration of nursing interventions and the occurrence of EEG pattern changes was detected. The longer the nursing intervention lasted the more EEG changes were generated. Conclusion: The results of the study show that nursing-related EEG changes can occur. This suggests that nursing interventions may be stressful for the neurosurgical intensive care patient. It is possible that this stress could be palliated by raising awareness among nursing staff of the importance of using sedatives and analgesics before performing nursing interventions.