Surgery in out patient units: identification of nursing diagnoses in the perioperative period

This study aimed at identifying nursing diagnoses in the perioperative period of surgery outpatients. Levine's theory was selected as a theoretical framework in which four conservation principles are proposed, namely: energy conservation, structural integrity conservation, personal integrity conservation and social integrity conservation. Data were collected by the researcher in the outpatient service of a private hospital in the city of Ribeirão Preto (São Paulo, Brazil) in the months of January and February 2001 by using a previously validated instrument. The sample consisted of 30 adult patients submitted to surgeries in different specialties with regional or general anesthesia. After data collection, the identification of nursing diagnoses was made using the process of diagnostic thinking described by Risner. The construction of diagnostic categories was based on the NANDA taxonomy as well as on the study by Carpenito. In the perioperative period, fifteen diagnoses were identified and, in this study, those which obtained a frequency equal to or higher than 50% were analyzed, namely: anxiety, infection risk, lesion risk due to perioperative positioning and pain.