Condições de funcionalidade de pessoas com lesão medular fundamentadas no índice de barthel : proposta de intervenção de enfermagem

Abstract

This research seeks to evaluate functionality conditions for the development of Activities of Daily Living with people suffer of spinal cord injuries based on Barthel Index. For this purpose I opted to do a qualitative research in home and hospital environments. The sample was made up of 74 people with traumatic spinal cord injuries – 47 were in hospital and 27 at home – who were nursed in public municipal hospitals which were a reference in trauma and emergency in the city of Fortaleza-Ceará-Brazil. The collecting of the data occurred from March through June of 2010 using a form made up of independent variables referring to clinical and sociodemographic and dependent variables data which corresponds to the Barthel index scale that evaluates ten activities of daily living. The ethical aspects related to the research carried out in human beings were respected during the whole process. For statistical data analysis, we used the program “Predictive Analytics Software” (PASW), version 18.0. The findings were discussed based on the pertinent literature, becoming evidenced that the people who were most affected by spinal cord injury were mostly young men, between 18 and 40 years old, with low school attendance and without occupation and Fortaleza residents. The most evident was complete paraplegia with a six-month span due to gunfire perforation which are common aspects to the hospital and home groups. As for the functionality for AVDs development, after the Barthel index application, in a general way, manifested distinctively in relation to the groups. Those who were hospitalized demonstrated greater dependence whilst those at home demonstrated greater independence. By analyzing each category it got clear that the activities: personal hygiene, intestines, transferring, mobility, toilet using, dressing and bathing, presented diverging outcomes. Those who were hospitalized showed greater dependence whilst those who were at home displayed greater independence. Only in eating activities the results were converging both to the hospitalized and home patients. The latter ones demonstrated independence to feed, urinary incontinence and were incapable of going up / going down the stairs without help. After these findings, we proposed an intervention model grounded on the nursing process which was made up of 23 nursing diagnoses from the “North American Nursing Diagnosis Association” (NANDA), 32 nursing interventions from the “Nursing Interventions Classification” (NIC) and 23 nursing outcomes from the Nursing Outcomes Classification (NOC). To sum up, it is appropriate to state that the Barthel Index came to be an easy application scale, efficient in obtaining the outcomes and sensitive in detecting the patient’s clinical alterations. And last, but not least, this research, besides of achieving the proposed goals, contributed to the enhancing of knowledge and its autonomy and the Brazilian neurological nursing practice, especially that from Ceará, by proposing a nursing intervention model aiming to promote health and life quality betterment of the people who suffer of spinal cord injury.