Paper Title
Forensic Cases Observation Status Of Nursing Students In Emergency Room
Abstract
Introduction:
If a person causes intentionally or unwantedly losses of an individual's physical or mental health, these facts are taken into consideration in forensic cases. Health care professionals are often faced with forensic cases in health institutions, especially in emergency rooms. Because crime and violence are on the rise around the world today. Motor vehicle accidents, traumas, physical assaults, suicide attempts, carbon monoxide poisoning cases, occupational injuries, stab-cut injuries, falls, gunshot wounds, electrical-related injuries, alcohol-substance abuse, sexual assault, suspicious deaths etc. are evaluated as forensic cases. A forensic nurse is a nursing part of science who provides care for patients who are victims and/or perpetrators of trauma intentionally or unwantedly losses (1).Nurses often faced wıth forensic cases in health institutions (2). Because crime and violence are on the rise today (3).Motor vehicle, trauma, physical assault, suicide attempts,carbon monoxide poisoning ,occupational injuries,stab-cut injuries, fall, gunshot (firearm) wounds, electrical-related injuries, alcohol-substance abuse, suspicious deaths etc. are evaluated as forensic cases (4,5). It can be listed as the roles of nurses in forensic cases;take the patient history, collection, storage and enrolling evidence, reported to the police, obtain sample of alcohol from bloodetc (2,3,6).
Objectives: This descriptive study was carried out to determine forensic cases observation status of nursing students in emergency room.
Methods:In this descriptive study; sixtyemergency reports of nursing students were investigated in the spring education term of 2014-2015 education years. The first question is ‘Did you observe any forensic cases in emergency room?’ and the second question is ‘Which processes are applied to legal aspects of forensic cases in emergency room?’. The answer to these questions were evaluated by researchers and data prepared by combining all evaluations. Frequency statistics were used for data analyzing by used SPSS 19.0.
Results: All of the nursing students (n: 60) belonged to second year and took surgical courses during the term and all emergency report were done in emergency room at university hospital. Mean age of nursing students was 21.15 ± 1.02.According to students’ emergency reports, 49 students (%81.6) were encounter with forensic cases. Students know that traffic accidents (60%), carbon monoxide poisoning (41.6%), physical assault (28.3%), suicide(30%), fall(25%), stab-cut injuries (13.3%) were forensic cases. According to students’ emergency reports, nurses roles in forensic cases were listed as reported the police (53.3%), pressing forensic stamps (41.6%), take a history (26.6%), obtain sample of alcohol from blood (%20) etc.
Discussion and Conclusion: This study showed that students didn’t observe enough forensic cases.There are no legal regulations related to forensic nursing ın Turkey and also there are no definitions of forensic nursing (7).Nurses are unable to make the necessary approach because they have sufficient knowledge and experience in matters of forensic medicine (8). It was determined that nursing students were not aware of following the forensic cases and the general points of forensic case assessment. We recommend that criticalpoints of forensic caseassessment should be added to curriculum of students.Especiallytheyshould beinformationapproachaboutthemostcommonforensiccase (traffic accidents, carbon monoxide poisoning etc.).In a study82.2% of participantsreportedthat Legal Medicine and Forensic Nursing should be added to nursing curriculum (9)Development of forensic nursing will contribute to accurate and rapid realization of justice and ensure peace (8).
Keywords - Emergency room, forensic nurses, observation, students