Nursing: Fire Safety and Burn Care

Home Fire Safety

• The nurse should encourage regular home fire exit drills as a prevention strategy.

Burn Injuries

• Sunburn is the least likely to result in a full-thickness burn.

Partial-Thickness Burn Assessment

• The nurse would expect to find blisters, intact nerve endings, and a red, shiny, wet appearance when assessing a patient with a partial-thickness burn.

Burn Patient Assessment

• If the nurse auscultates wheezes throughout the lung fields and then finds decreased breath sounds, the most appropriate action is to anticipate the need for endotracheal intubation and notify the provider.

Fluid and Electrolyte Shifts

• During the early emergent phase of a burn injury, fluid and electrolyte shifts include the movement of sodium and water into the interstitial space.

Nutrition for Burn Patients

• To maintain a positive nitrogen balance in a major burn, the patient must eat a high-protein, high-carbohydrate diet.

Wound Care

• The nurse's priority intervention for wound care would be to observe the wound for signs of infection during dressing changes.

Pain Management

• Pain management for the burn patient is most effective when using a pain rating tool, informing the patient about and having control over the management of pain, and using a multimodal approach (e.g., sustained-release and short-acting opioids, NSAIDs, adjuvant analgesics).

Rehabilitation Phase

• A therapeutic measure used to prevent hypertrophic scarring during the rehabilitation phase is applying pressure garments.

Discharge Planning

• The first action the nurse should take when meeting with the patient is to review the patient's current health care status and readiness for discharge to home.