RELEVANCE TO CLINICAL PRACTICE
A deeper understanding of unpleasant symptoms and
signs may help nurses to early recognize patients’
problems and allow targeted interventions or avoid
undersedation or oversedation. This may be focused
in learning activities in clinical areas as well as in
nursing education. A more active stimulus-response
assessment of ICU patients is required to detect
oversedation, CIP/CIM and hypoactive delirium. In
the choice of assessment tools, it is important to note
that symptoms and signs can be excluded and an
assessment tool should guide nurses in evaluating the
patient’s tolerance of various unpleasant symptoms as
well as the level of consciousness.