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

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.