Effect of Implementing a Nursing Protocol on Controlling Venous Thromboembolism among Post-Operative Patients with Femur Fracture Surgeries.

Abstract

Background: Rotational and angling stresses exerted by top-down forces on the femoral head andneck are the primary causes of femur fractures, a common hip trauma Objective: Determinethe effect of implementing a nursing protocol, on controlling Venous thromboembolismamong post-operative patients with femur fracture surgeries. Settings: The inpatient andoutpatient clinics of El-Hadra Orthopaedic and Traumatology Hospital in Alexandria werethe sites of the current study. Subjects: 60 adult male and female patients; a conveniencesample. They were organised into two equal sequential groups: the control and studied group.Tools: Seven tools were used for data collection of this study. Results: Following theimplementation of the nursing protocol, 30% of the control subjects developed deep veinthrombosis in the right lower limb and 20% in the left lower limb. Conversely, the nursingprotocol resulted in absence of DVT in the majority of the studied group (96.7%).The controland studied group patients exhibited a high statistically significant difference followingimplementation of the nursing protocol (χ2=16.86 p=<0.001***). Conclusion: The nursingprotocol for patients undergoing femur fracture surgeries showed a positive finding inrelation to controlling of VTE. The proposed nursing protocol implementation illustratedpositive health outcomes of the studied patients as evidenced by improvement in knowledgelevel regarding VTE and anticoagulant- therapy post implementation of the nursing protocol.The studied patients had improvement in practice level regarding total ankle range of motionassessment score, adherence to anticoagulant therapy, safe use of mechanical prophylaxis &walker compared to the controls post implementation of the nursing protocol.Recommendation: Replication of this study using large probability sample.