Nursing care of a patient with obstructive sleep apnea using international terminology ICNP®

Introduction. The essence of obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) are the episodes of paused or shallow breathing, associated with a reduction in blood oxygen saturation. OSA increases the risk of cardiovascular incidents, secondary hypertension, metabolic diseases, traffic accidents, depression or sudden death. The social consequences of OSA are: impaired interpersonal relationships, social isolation, and decreased quality of life of the patient. The treatment of OSA involves using methods to maintain continuous positive airway pressure, as well as lifestyle modification.
The aim of the work. The aim of this work is to present selected aspects of the nursing process in patients with OSA, using the ICNP terminology.
Results. In the process of nursing a patient, the ICNP® diagnoses and the corresponding nursing interventions were used: apnoea/risk for apnoea, risk for disease, lack of knowledge of disease, ready to learn, fear/anxiety.
Conclusions. The ICNP® catalogue allows to fully describe diagnoses and a plan of care for patients with OSA.