[Validation of standard operating procedures in nursing care of patients with totally implanted catheters]

Dosage of heparin for patency of the totally implanted central venous catheter in cancer patients

OBJECTIVE

to analyze the evidence available in the literature about the lowest necessary dose of heparin to maintain the patency of the totally implanted central venous catheter in adult cancer patients.

METHOD

an integrative literature review, carried out in the following databases: Literatura Latino-Americana e do Caribe em Ciências de Saúde, Sciverse Scopus, Web of Science, Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature, Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials, including thirteen studies.

RESULTS

the evidence showed that the dose of heparin (300 IU/ml) is the most used in maintaining the patency of the totally implanted central venous catheter.

CONCLUSION

according to the selected studies, the lowest dose of heparin found in maintaining the patency of the totally implanted central venous catheter in cancer patients was 10 UN/ml with a volume of 5 ml of the heparin solution.

Nurses' knowledge regarding the handling of the totally-implanted venous access device

In the light of nurses' questions regarding the handling of the totally-implanted venous access device, this study aimed to evaluate these professionals' knowledge. This is a descriptive study with a qualitative approach, whose sample was made up of 28 nurses working on the Internal Medicine ward and in the Emergency Room. The study was undertaken in two stages: interviewing, to evaluate knowledge regarding the handling of the implanted port; and an integrative review to clarify the doubts identified. The results indicated that the nurses' knowledge was inadequate regarding when to use the implanted port, its purpose, the puncture technique, maintenance and handling. It is concluded that the knowledge of the subjects evaluated is inadequate, and that it is necessary for these professionals' clinical skills to be standardized and for them to receive theoretical-practical training.

Application of the community oral health indicator by non-dental personnel and its contribution to oral healthcare

Objective

To validate the Community Oral Health Indicator-COHI by non-dental personnel.

Methods

Risk assessment is an essential component in the decision-making process. Therefore, the COHI, an instrument to evaluate population oral health situation in a simple manner, was created. Community Health Agents (CHA) were trained to use the COHI (variables as number of teeth, presence of cavities, residual dental roots, oral lesions, etc.), while dentists for the COHI and DMFT. 60 individuals were examined, by CHA and DS, with these indicators in order to validate the use of COHI by non-dental personnel.

Results

Dental and soft tissues problems were well spread among those individuals. People with and without soft tissue damage, as well as with and without use and/or need for prostheses were found in the sample, proving it to be a heterogeneous population for the evaluated factors and representing the real population. The results of examinations performed by dentists using the COHI and DMF-T/dmf-t presented strong agreement when comparing the two instruments. When COHI and DMFT were compared, the results showed a concordance of 0.86 for the number of present teeth, and 0.85 for the number of residual roots. Likewise, when analyzing the data comparing the use of the COHI by DS and CHA a high agreement level, specificity and sensitivity was found.

Conclusion

The COHI has shown to be useful for detecting problems in oral health. Therefore, COHI may be used, after training, by non-dental personnel, contributing to the planning and organization of the community dental assistance.