Effect of Applying Acupressure on the Clinical Outcomes of Critically Ill Children with Respiratory Tract Infections: An Integrative Nursing Approach | ||||
| Egyptian Journal of Health Care | ||||
| Article 2, Volume 13, Issue 2, June 2022, Page 27-38 PDF (552.31 K) | ||||
| Document Type: Original Article | ||||
| DOI: 10.21608/ejhc.2022.227167 | ||||
 View on SCiNiTO | ||||
| Authors | ||||
| Rasha M. Abo-Hadida1; Mohamed E. Abdelgawad2; Zohour I. Rashwan1, 3; Nagwa I. Hamad* 1 | ||||
| 1Department of Pediatric Nursing, Faculty of Nursing, Alexandria University, Egypt | ||||
| 2Department of Critical Care and Emergency Nursing, Faculty of Nursing, Alexandria University, Egypt | ||||
| 3Pediatric Nursing Specialty, Nursing Department, College of Health and Sport Sciences, University of Bahrain, Zallaq, Bahrain | ||||
| Abstract | ||||
| Background: Respiratory tract infections are heterogeneous and complex group of diseases that require pharmaceutical interventions with undesirable side effects. Thus, integration of acupressure in the care of children with respiratory problems may be effective with regard to management of respiratory distress and prevention of medicinal treatment side effects. Aim: To investigate the effect of applying acupressure on the clinical outcomes of critically ill children with respiratory tract infections. Methods: Quasi-experimental, pre- posttests, research design was carried out at the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit of El-Shatby University Hospital in Alexandria, Egypt. Subjects were 60 eligible children who were assigned into two equal groups. The control group received the routine care of the unit only whereas the study group received acupressure in addition to routine care. Findings: Degree of dyspnea decreased dramatically among the study group after three days of acupressure as 56.7% were not troubled at all by dyspnea compared to only 3.3% of children in the control group. Regarding degree of respiratory impairment, all children in study group experienced mild respiratory impairment in the 2nd and 3rd days of the study period (100% in each) compared to the control group (23.3% and16.7% respectively) with significant statistical differences (p= 0.000 in each day). Conclusion and recommendations: Integrating acupressure with conventional medical therapy could decrease the severity of dyspnea and enhance pulmonary functioning. In that sense, acupressure was proved to be promising in improving respiratory problems among children with respiratory tract infections. Accordingly, pediatric intensive care nurses can accelerate the improvement of those children using such non-pharmacological approach with the pharmacological one. | ||||
| Keywords | ||||
| Acupressure; Critical illness; Respiratory tract infections; Intensive Care Units; Pediatric; Complementary Therapies | ||||
|
Statistics Article View: 332 PDF Download: 155 |
||||
