Nursing diagnoses in elderly people admitted in surgical unit

Objective: The study’s goal has been to identify nursing diagnoses for elderly patients in surgical units, determine the prevalence of these diagnoses, and verify the association between the most prevalent diagnoses and the defining characteristics/risk factors. Methods: It is a descriptive-exploratory and cross-sectional study with a quantitative approach, which was carried out with 38 elderly patients admitted to a university hospital in the Southern region of Brazil. Data collection was performed by the application of the nursing history. The North American Nursing Diagnosis Classification and the SPSS software version 21.0 were used for analysis. Results: The elderly patients hospitalized in the surgical clinic showed an average of 3.4 (±1.9) nursing diagnoses and the most important were: Risk of Infection (44.7%); Poor Knowledge (42.1%); Pain (36.8%) and, Risk of Fall (26.3%). Conclusion: Nursing diagnoses make it possible to help the planning and implementation of nursing actions, taking into account the specificities of elderly patients.