The Audit of Nursing Cares Related to the Treatment of Extravasation in Neonatal Intensive Care Units

Extravasation is one of the complications of peripheral intravenous catheters. Doing standard nursing cares leads to more effective and safer treatment and care of extravasation and the reduction in the length of hospital stay for neonates. This study aimed to audit nursing cares related to the treatment of extravasation in neonatal intensive care units.
Methods & Materials: In this descriptive study (the audit), 200 nursing cares regarding neonatal extravasation were observed and assessed. Data gathering tool was a standard check list. The data collection method was the observation and recording of nursing cares related to neonatal extravasation in neonatal intensive care unit of selected hospitals affiliated to Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences in 2015. The data were analyzed using descriptive statistics on SPSS software v.21.
The standard cares were performed by nurses in some cases, and in some standards, nurses showed poor performance. Among 25 common nursing cares of extravasation, 22 cares were far from standards. After third and fourth degree extravasation, none of required nursing cares were done properly.
Nursing cares of extravasation for neonates in NICU are far from standard cares. This could be attributed to the lack of nurses’ awareness of the importance of proper extravasation care and its consequences, failure in nurses’ education, lack of authorities’ supervision on cares, lack of facilities and equipments, and nursing shortage.