Nursing role in the care of patients undergoing pulmonary thromboendarterectomy. An integrative review

Abstract

Introduction: pulmonary thromboendarterectomy is the treatment of choice and the only potentially curative option for chronic thromboembolic pulmonary arterial hypertension. Objective: To integrate the information available in the scientific literature on nursing involvement in pulmonary thromboendarterectomy. Method: integrative review for which a search of primary articles was carried out in databases such as: CUIDEN, SAGE, Springer, Scholar, Scopus, Taylor & Francis, PubMed, ScienceDirect and LILACS. Search strategies were defined in both English and Spanish, no time period was established, and a narrative database of the information was constructed. Results: Eight articles were included, five of which were topic reviews. Nurses play a crucial role in treating pulmonary thromboendarterectomy, as they participate in the various intervention phases within the surgical context; foster the patients' hemodynamic recovery; skillfully detect cardiac output problems, serious changes in pulmonary pressure, the need for ventilatory measures and fluid and electrolyte management; as well as understand the fundamental complications of the procedure. Conclusions: Nurses participate in the process of understanding the diagnosis and during the preoperative, intraoperative and postoperative phases. However, there is limited nursing knowledge production on this event of interest.