Nursing care in spinal cord injuries in Turkey

The organized management of spinal cord injury is a team activity and the nurse is at the central position of that team. Nursing activities and caring should be superior in a spinal cord injury rehabilitation department. Nevertheless, nurses seldom undertake caring activities and usually perform therapeutic activities in developing countries. We recorded the care of 15 spinal cord injured patients around the clock for 10 working days. We asked the nurses, patients and their family carers to record every activity they performed on the forms. The activities were as follows: Oral care, face care, hand care, foot care, nail care, genitalia care, perineal care, catheterization, head bath, bed bath, bath, positioning, mobilization, exercising, wound dressing, room activities and the other nursing activities. The total number of nursing activities, performed was 3573. Subtotals were as follows: 2545 caring activities, 364 room activities, and 664 other nursing activities. While nurses performed 550 of the caring activities, patients and their family carers performed 988 and 1007 patient care activities. The distribution of the nurses' activities was as follows: 40% for caring, 11% for room activities, 48% for others. We discuss the importance of caring activities and the role of nurses in the rehabilitation team.