[Cardiac catheterism. Nursing performance in the critical unit]

In acute myocardial infarction (AMI), ischemia is acute, intense and maintained, it being one of the main causes of death in our society. Immediate treatment may reduce it considerably. The objectives established in this study were the following: Verify the course of the AMI treatments Verify the evolution in hemostatic methods in patients subjected to cardiac catheterism. Elaborate new nursing protocols for pre- and post-catheterism care. A retrospective, descriptive study was done. From October 1999 to December 2002, a total of 1969 patients were admitted to our unit. Of these, 818 were admitted due to heart disease. Those whose diagnosis was AMI or Angina were selected among the latter and then those in whom cardiac catheterism was done were chosen. It was conducted in a 12 bed polyvalent ICU, the data collection being done by five nurses from that unit based on clinical and nursing history. An increase in the performance of diagnostic and therapeutic cardiac catheterism in recent years was observed, and there was also an increase in intraarterial suture as hemostasis method in detriment to mechanical compression. New standardized nursing products were elaborated to facilitate and improve the care of these patients and try to reduce preparation time for their transfer to the hemodynamics unit, given the urgency existing in most of the cases.