2021 Volume 24 Issue 4 Pages 470-475
Purpose: In accordance with “Japanese guidelines for nutrition support therapy in the adult and pediatric critically ill patients”, doctors and nurses developed our own enteral nutrition protocol. The protocol was initiated by the nursing staff and checked after every shift. We examined whether there were changes in the commencement of enteral nutrition before and after the introduction of the protocol.
Methods: Participants were selected if they had required ventilation for over 48 hours after visiting the emergency room of our hospital during the period from July 2016 to May 2018, and were divided into two groups: before and after the introduction of the protocol.
Results: We recruited 66 participants before the introduction of this protocol and 71 participants after the introduction. Before the introduction of the protocol, 71.2% commenced enteral nutrition within 48 hours of visiting the emergency room. After introduction of the protocol, 90.1% commenced enteral nutrition within 48 hours, which was a significant improvement (p<0.01). In addition, in survival-to-discharge patients, the number of days to first getting off the bed was significantly reduced from 6.26 days to 5.7 days after introduction of the protocol.
Conclusions: Following the introduction of the nurse-led protocol, the commencement of enteral nutrition within 48 hours from entering ICU was significantly improved.
