| dc.description.abstract | Background: Adverse events from patient positioning can cause injuries, including pressure injuries, which are preventable. To aid perioperative nurses in identifying patients at risk, recent clinical guidelines recommend the use of validated and reliable risk assessment tools. A preliminary literature search revealed the absence of a comprehensive overview of existing literature on risk assessment tools for preventing positioning injuries in the perioperative setting.
Aim: To identify and explore the characteristics of risk assessment tools developed for surgical patients in the perioperative setting to prevent positioning injuries, explore published evidence, and identify literature gaps.
Method: This scoping review followed Joanna Briggs Institute guidelines for scoping reviews. Primary research, dissertations and poster presentations were searched across Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health (CINAHL), Embase, MEDLINE and ProQuest.
Results: Thirty-eight papers were included from 2346 screened. Sixteen risk assessment tools to identify risk of intraoperative acquired pressure injuries, developed for the perioperative setting were identified. Studies were predominantly observational, with small sample sizes and confined to single sites.
Conclusion: This scoping review revealed heterogeneity in the evidence for the identified tools and demonstrated that four risk assessment tools had undergone some revalidation. However, lack of comparative studies results in no evidence asserting the superiority of one tool over another. This scoping review addressed a gap in the literature by identifying existing risk assessment tools developed for use in the perioperative setting to ensure patient safety.
Keywords: surgical patient, risk assessment tool, positioning injury, pressure injury, perioperative nursing | |