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Review
. 2023 Aug;45(8):764-776.
doi: 10.1177/01939459231178495. Epub 2023 Jun 5.

The Role and Contributions of Nurses in Stroke Rehabilitation Units: An Integrative Review

Eric F Tanlaka  1 , Amanda McIntyre  2 , Denise Connelly  3 , Nicole Guitar  3 , Angela Nguyen  3 , Nancy Snobelen  4
Affiliations
Review

The Role and Contributions of Nurses in Stroke Rehabilitation Units: An Integrative Review

Eric F Tanlaka et al. West J Nurs Res. 2023 Aug.

Abstract

Nurses' contributions to stroke rehabilitation have been viewed as pivotal, but therapeutically nonspecific. This integrative review synthesized empirical literature on the roles and contributions of nurses to inpatient stroke rehabilitation to answer three research questions: (a) What specific skills or tasks have been identified as the roles and contributions of nurses to inpatient stroke rehabilitation? (b) How do nurses perform these skills/tasks to support and promote inpatient stroke rehabilitation and recovery? and (c) What factors have been identified to impact nurses' working conditions on inpatient stroke rehabilitation units? A systematic search of multiple electronic databases retrieved seven studies which provided significant context and examples to these questions. What nurses do in practice included, for example, maximizing patients' independence in performing daily activities, preventing harm, and preserving integrity. How nurses perform their therapeutic roles included teaching, coaching, coordination, management, advocacy, collaboration. Factors that impact nurses' working conditions consisted of time, resources, and knowledge. This review demonstrates our current understanding of nurses' contributions to inpatient stroke rehabilitation, highlights their significant role, identifies current barriers/challenges of implementing stroke nursing care, and suggests ways of documenting and measuring nurses' contributions.

Keywords: Competency; Identity; Nursing; Role; Stroke rehabilitation.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declared the following potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: Nancy Snobelen is employed at WeRPN (Registered Practical Nurses Association of Ontario) in Professional Practice and Research. However, Nancy Snobelen was not an investigator on the grant obtained from WeRPN as described in Funding Source.

Figures

Figure 1.
Figure 1.
PRISMA flow diagram for the systematic literature search.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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