Nursing outcomes for patients with multiple traumas and impaired physical mobility: An integrative review

This research identifies nursing outcomes for patients with multiple traumas who present changes in physical mobility.

This was a thorough literature review, following Whittemore and Knafl's method and the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses´ guidelines (2005) and adopting the Oxford Center for Evidence-Based Classification Medicine-Levels of Evidence (2011). The literature search included databases from Virtual Health Library, Cochrane Library, Excerpta Medica Database, Medical Literature Analysis and Retrieval System Online, PubMed, SciVerse Scopus, The Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature, and Web of Science. It was conducted between October and December 2019 and updated in April 2022.

Upon our first analysis of the 254 articles that could correlate to the present study, we concluded that 15 of them are of foremost relevance. The nursing outcomes found are correlated with skin care, position in hospital bed, pressure injury prevention, self-care assistance to bath, intimate, and oral hygiene, pain control, circulatory precaution, and impaired physical mobility assistance. All of these outcomes are directly or indirectly involved with the consequences of mobility impairment.

The main nursing outcomes of our research identified for patients with multiple traumas were related to mobility, the consequences of immobility, self-care, and skin maintenance. In conclusion, this review highlights the importance of measuring outcomes related to the provision of nursing care.

The nursing outcomes classification provides results that can be used across the continuum of care to assess the patient's status after nursing interventions. It also allows for improved care for multiple trauma patients who have altered mobility, identifying the real needs of these patients.