Nursing Diagnosis Based on Signs and Symptoms of Patients With Heart Disease

PURPOSE: The aim was to identify the main signs and symptoms of cardiac patients hospitalized in a unit of intensive cardiology care in order to infer the main nursing diagnoses (NDs). METHODS: We performed a cross-sectional study; the sample consisted of 77 randomly selected records. Those records included only patients hospitalized for cardiovascular causes and with electronic chart available. FINDINGS: Signs and symptoms identified at admission were psychic (40.3%), compressive dressing on arterial puncture site (33.8%), chest pain (29.9%), tachycardia (22.1%), and hemodynamic instability (20.8%). CONCLUSIONS AND PRACTICAL IMPLICATIONS: According to the data collected, we were able to infer that acute pain, excess of fluid volume, decreased cardiac output, spontaneous ventilation impaired, anxiety and impaired skin integrity are priority for the NDs in the studied population.