The information needs of patients receiving procedural sedation in a hospital emergency department

It is often necessary to perform procedures that can cause pain to patients in hospital and in recent years it has become common place to provide procedural sedation in these situations within the Emergency Department (ED) setting (O ’Connor et al., 2011). Procedural sedation, alternatively known as conscious sedation, is acknowledged as being on a sedation/anaesthesia continuum, with the level of sedation dependant on the choice of agent and on the individual patient’s response. The American College of Emergency Physicians (ACEP) (Godwin et al., 2005) define procedural sedation as “the technique of administering sedatives or dissociative agents with or without analgesics to induce a state that allows the patient to tolerate unpleasant procedures while maintaining cardiorespiratory function” (p.

Source: International Emergency Nursing - February 15, 2017 Category: Nursing Authors: Sue Revell, Judy Searle, Shona Thompson Source Type: research