Abstract
PURPOSE
To compare nursing diagnoses of patients undergoing cleft lip/palate correction between pre- and postoperative phases; to describe the related Functional Health Patterns according to frequencies of nursing diagnoses.
METHODS
Researchers assessed 40 patients hospitalized for cleft lip/palate correction by interview and physical examination before and after the surgical procedure. Four nurses independently made the nursing diagnoses for each patient based on the recorded data. The criterion to accept the diagnoses as valid was the consensus of a minimum of two out of four nurses. The MacNemar test was applied to verify whether the frequencies of the diagnoses changed after the surgery procedure.
FINDINGS
Nurses identified 454 diagnoses (35 categories). Knowledge deficit (p= 0.02), and self-esteem disturbance (p<0.00) decreased in frequency after the surgical procedure. The frequencies of the following diagnoses significantly increased after surgery (p<0.00): risk for infection, risk for suffocation/aspiration, altered oral mucous membrane, sleep pattern disturbance, pain, fatigue, and impaired tissue integrity. The most altered Functional Health Pattern in the pre- and postoperative phases were Self-Perception/Self-Concept (28%) and Nutritional-Metabolic (51%).
DISCUSSION
Preoperatively, care needs were related to psychosocial functioning. In the postoperative phase they were primarily related to biologic risks and comfort. Although these findings showed that surgery altered the response profile of the sample, differences in the forms used for the pre- and postoperative assessments might have contributed to these results.
CONCLUSIONS
The results of this study can be used to determine core competencies needed for nursing care in the area of craniofacial anomalies.
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