Postoperative Nausea and Vomiting - Essay Example

Clinically, however, there is a serious need to control PONV since undertreated, PONV may lead to life-threatening complications, such as, wound dehiscence, pulmonary aspiration of gastric contents, bleeding, dehydration, and even electrolyte imbalances if continued unabated. Rapid advances in surgical techniques have brought in a paradigm shift in approach to surgical practice, where the order of the day is minimal access and rapid discharge from the hospital, and day care surgeries are rapidly replacing the convention surgical practice of prolonged hospital stay.

Even very mild PONV may result in delayed hospital discharge, decreased patient satisfaction, and increased use of resources including medical and surgical care, intravenous fluids, drugs, and other supplies. PONV is the major cause of unanticipated admission to hospital following day-case surgery (Gan, 2006), and from these angles, prevention and management is of utmost importance, and for the reason given above, the nurses must implement the management strategies that consider evidence from research.

Nurses have responsibilities to prevent and relieve postoperative nausea and vomiting. . Most of the nursing practice for management of PONV goes by traditional practice, not by evidence. Classically a majority of PONV is caused by the effects anesthetic agents on the brain and other related perioperative factors. With the advent of newer pharmacologic agents that are used to induce anesthesia, it is now important to update knowledge on the management of PONV. There is a huge body of literature of PONV management that covers pharmacological, dietary, and behavioral interventions that may culminate into an updated development of assessment and management guidelines (Eberhart et al., 2004). Moreover, it will open an opportunity to identify the gaps in knowledge, so further research can be carried out.

Therefore it was decided that a literature review will be undertaken to find out evidence from published research literature in the current time to examine evidence and rationale for nursing practices in PONV, and the findings will be presented in an organized manner so these can be utilized as a guideline in the practice.Strategy of Literature Review To build a scientific basis of evidence, a comprehensive literature search was undertaken and then evaluated. For the purpose of the review of literature to support the rationale, need, and continuation of the project, the author conducted an exhaustive literature search.

Electronic databases accessed for information included: CINHAL, Medline and Pubmed along with the Google Scholar internet search engine. Moreover MEDLINE, EMBASE, and CINAHL and Cochrane databases were searched to identify relevant literature on prevention and management of Postoperative nausea and vomiting. UMI Proquest Digital Dissertations, ISI Web of Science, Cambridge Scientific Abstracts,