Donning and doffing of personal protective equipment protocol and key points of nursing care for patients with COVID-19 in ICU

Abstract

Coronavirus pandemic is the most important public health event in the world currently. Patients with coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) in a critical state are at risk of progressing rapidly into many serve complications; they require a high level of care from ICU nurses. How to avoid the virus to infect health care worker is also a critical issue. Based on the summarized experience of Chinese health workers, literature review and clinical practice, this article introduced donning and doffing of personal protective equipment (PPE) protocol and some keypoints of nursing critical care in patients with coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19): caring of patients requiring intubation and ventilation, venous thromboembolism (VTE) prevention, caring of patients on ECMO, caring for patients requiring enteral nutrition, psychological support and nursing management of COVID-19 ICU. This article introduced a useful protocol of donning and doffing personal protective equipment to protect health care workers, and provided key points for the ICU nurses how to take care of COVID-19 patients.