The development and evaluation of clinical nursing practice guidelines for enteral feeding in critically ill patients

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to develop a Clinical Nursing Practice Guideline (CNPG) for enteral feeding in critically ill patients. The National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) was applied as a conceptual framework to develop the CNPG. It comprises three phases: 1) Determining the need for and scope of the guidelines 2) Implementation of enteral feeding guideline and 3) Guideline assessment. The content of this CNPG was validated by 3 experts. The results of CNPG included 5 steps; 1) Assessment for readiness of the critically ill patients before enteral nutrition, 2) Calculation of the recommended daily energy intake, 3) Enteral nutrition procedure, 4) Prevention of enteral nutrition complication and 5) Outcome evaluation after receiving enteral nutrition. The results revealed that CNPG can be possibly applied for enteral feeding in critical ill patients. High feasibility and high satisfaction were found after the CNPG implementation.