Featured Applications in Intensive Care Units in the COVID-19 Pandemic: Prone Position

The effectiveness of prone positioning in the management of hypoxic respiratory failure has come to the fore again with the coronavirus disease-2019 pandemic. Intensive care nurses, together with the intensive care team, have considerable responsibilities for the implementation of the position, the follow-up of the patient, obtaining effective results, and the prevention of possible complications. In this direction, it is important to establish valid and reliable protocols prepared by the relevant authoritative institutions regarding the prone position. In order to follow these protocols, it is necessary to train the nurses together with the members of the intensive care team and to inform the patients and their relatives that the prone position will be applied. In this review, the physiological effect of prone positioning, its use in intubated and non-intubated intensive care patients, its indications and contraindications, care recommendations about the implementation, monitoring, and termination of the positioning, the duration of the use of the position, barriers to its use, and recommendations to increase the effectiveness of its clinical use was discussed.

Cite this article as: Öztürk Birge A, Kutlutürkan S. Featured applications in intensive care units in the COVID-19 pandemic: Prone position. Arch Health Sci Res. 2022;9(2):138-143.