Aggravated Respiratory Failure From COVID-19 Infection: Patient Care Management From Nurses in the Intensive Care Unit.

CONTEXT: About 19% of COVID-19-patients undergo hypoxic breathing problems, approximately 14% require intensive oxygen therapy, and 5% require mechanical ventilation and ICU admission. These patients can deteriorate rapidly, so nurses must closely watch them.

OBJECTIVE

The study intended to examine the role of emergency nurses as care providers in intensive care units (ICUs).

DESIGN

The research team performed a narrative review by searching the Mendeley, Medline, Google Scholar, ScienceDirect, Springer, and PubMed databases. The search used the keywords COVID-19 infection, epidemiology of respiratory failure pathology in COVID-19 infection, involvement of viral spike protein S of SARSCoV-2, SARS CoV2 transmission, pathophysiology of SARSCoV-2 attack-mediated ARDS, transmission of viral particles of SARSCoV-2 in lungs, mechanism of cytokines in lungs, immunomodulatory response changes in lung physiology, and involvement of nursing officer in nursing patient care management in ICU respiratory failure.

SETTING

This study were conducted at The First Affiliated Hospital of Nanchang University, China.

RESULTS

Nurses are necessarily not only responsible for adequate oxygen management but also for other critical health services to benefit patients, such as control of oxygen saturation and vital signs, to reduce respiratory failure in the ICU.

CONCLUSIONS

The diagnosis of the root cause of respiratory failure and its treatment are complex because a variety of pulmonary and extrapulmonary conditions can cause respiratory failure. Methods of treating acute respiratory failure and other respiratory illness require a multidisciplinary, collaborative approach. Nurses are in the best position to determine patients' risks for respiratory distress, observe them during hospitalizations, and evaluate their treatments.