An investigation on the practice of respiratory care in head injury patient in the emergency unit of Arak Valiasr hospital

The most important factor in the care of traumatic brain injury (TBI) which can decrease the patient’s inability and mortality is appropriate care of the respiratory system. Thus, the quality of care and treatment of head injury patients in emergency units are very important. This is a descriptive-analytic study conducted on 668 patients in the emergency ward of Valiasr hospital of Arak in 2005. The data were collected through questions categorized into two groups for nursing and professional care including the care of the respiratory system. The care providers collected the data by observation. SPSS was used to analyze the data. The quality of respiratory care provided by the nursing team for patients who had minor, moderate and severe head injury was poor, medium and poor, respectively. For physicians’ team, it was poor, poor and medium for the mentioned groups, respectively. In general, the quality of care provided by the specialists was assessed medium. Thus, for improvement of the quality of care for this type of patients, it is necessary to pay attention to some shortages such as appropriate equipment, enough personnel and education.