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An audit of post‐operative nausea and vomiting, following cardiac surgery: scope of the problem
Author(s) -
Mace Lisa
Publication year - 2003
Publication title -
nursing in critical care
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.689
H-Index - 43
eISSN - 1478-5153
pISSN - 1362-1017
DOI - 10.1046/j.1362-1017.2003.00029.x
Subject(s) - nausea , vomiting , medicine , audit , scope (computer science) , postoperative nausea and vomiting , anesthesia , cardiac surgery , general surgery , surgery , business , computer science , accounting , programming language
Summary • Post‐operative nausea and vomiting is a major problem for patients following cardiac surgery • The literature in this area identifies that there are a number of individual patient and post‐operative factors which increase the risk of post‐operative nausea and vomiting, including female gender, non‐smoker, age, use of opioids, pain and anxiety • An audit involving 200 patients, who had undergone cardiac surgery was implemented to assess/evaluate the incidence of nausea and vomiting for this patient group • Data collected included information relating to nausea and vomiting, pain, consumption of morphine and other individual patient variables • The results suggest that nausea and vomiting, is experienced by a large number of patients after cardiac surgery (67%), with the majority suffering on the first day after surgery. The duration of nausea and vomiting for most is short, but for a significant number (7%) it can last up to one‐quarter of their initial post‐operative course • The paper discusses key implications for practice arising from this project