Key result
Nursing assessment focusing on pain characteristics and haemodynamic stability helps confirm or rule out cardiac causes of chest pain.
A focused nursing assessment of chest pain is essential for identifying potential cardiac causes and determining patient haemodynamic stability.
May inform nursing protocols for chest pain; leaves open need for prospective outcome trials before practice change.
Chest pain is a common presenting complaint in healthcare. Causes of chest pain are multifactorial, but one of the greatest concerns is that the pain is cardiac in nature. A succinct, focused and targeted assessment can help confirm or rule our a cardiac cause as well as highlighting other potential causes. The assessment focuses on the quality, location, duration and characteristics, as well as the relieving factors, for a person with chest pain. Pain assessment tools aid in eliciting such information and serve to compliment the assessment process. Haemodynamic assessment aims to determine the stability of the patient and thus determine the need for subsequent nursing intervention and the timeliness of the assessment. It is beyond the scope of this paper to discuss investigations or the management of chest pain.
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Kate O’Donovan (2013) conducted a review in Chest pain. Nursing assessment was evaluated. Nursing assessment focusing on pain characteristics and haemodynamic stability helps confirm or rule out cardiac causes of chest pain.
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