Forensic nursing emergency care

Abstract

Background: often the medical personnel from the emergency departments are confronted with patients incumbent forensic aspects. The role of nurses in contact with the forensic patient goes beyond the normal care delivery practices requiring specific skills, knowledge and attitudes that influence the the forensic patient future evolution and case management. Presently no specific systematic training is availableat national level for continuous education of nurses for that specific issue. Aim and methodology: A descriptive study aiming to describe the experiences, knowledge, attitudes, practices and to identify and rank the educational needs of nurses in emergency department was carried out on a lot of 30 nurses from the emergency department of Bucharest Universitary Hospital in order to identify the main areas for future development of a dedicated training module for forensic nursing. Results: The result reveals that more than 90% of respondents are aware that forensicpatients occurs frequently in their practice and all of them are in favour of a dedicated training on forensic nursing aspects is necessary for emergency care nurses. Conclusion: Further development of adequate training module for different level of health care professionals involved in forensic patient diagnostic and treatment form nurses, medical doctors, social workers, paramedics, child care, police officers is necessary as a guarantee of adequate care for that specific category of patient.