A survey on performance of standards in recovery units

Abstract

Introduction: Society needs a good service for recovery, security, and improvement of care, which can reduce sudden events and mortality after surgery and anesthesia. The main factor after anesthesia is nursing care and recovery in a critical care unit. Observations showed that patients in a recovery room are at risk as much as those in operating room. However, the number of staffs in an operating room are 5 to 10 times more than the ones in a recovery room. A few minutes after operation, a lot of responsibilities are given to just one person. The recovery nurse, in addition to nursing care, should know the effects of anesthesia and its complications in the course of treatment and surgery.

Methods: This study was a descriptive study evaluating the present conditions and the way of performing care and comparing them with standards in post-anesthesia care units. The measured variables in the study included admission criteria, caring measures and discharge criteria of the patients who were operated under general anesthesia. Sampling method was convenient sampling and the data were collected through checklists and questionnaires. The data analysis was made by descriptive statistics and SPSS software.

Results: The findings showed that the care was close to standards in most cases. Regarding discharge criteria in recovery ward, the results of this research showed that nurses mostly considered the criteria of discharging appropriately, but 68.8% of operation reports were non-standard.

Conclusion: Since complications of anesthesia may occur during the patient's transfer from surgery room to recovery room, in the recovery unit and even during transfer to the ward, availability of a regular care program as well as skillful personnel with high capability of handling complications are recommended.

Key words: Recovery room, quality of care, cares of post-anesthesia.