How To Administer Eye Drops To A Patient In Nursing Job

How To Administer Eye Drops To A Patient In Nursing Job.Eyes, ears, and nose are special sense organs which require administration of drugs in a particular method. These organ sometimes contain pus, discharge, crusts which may interfere with effec­tiveness of drugs when applied in their presence. So these barriers must be cleaned before any drug is applied. This can be done by using cotton wool swabs and cooled boiled water.

Procedure And Techniques of Administering Eye Drops During Nursing The Patient

• Wash your hand before procedure.
• Intimate the patient about the procedure, and side effect occurring immediately or afterwards like atropine causing temporary impaired vision.
• Turn the patient’s head to the side of eye to be instilled, so, that any discharge will flow away from the nose.
• Swab the eye starting from the nose towards the side of the face.
• Discard the swab after once used.
• Repeat the procedure for the other eye.
• Stand behind the patient and ask him to bend his head back­wards looking up at you.
• Hold the dropper containing eye drop or tube containing the ointment horizontally while resting your hand on the cheek.
• Pull down the lower eye lid away from eye ball.
• Instil eye drop or squeeze 1 cm of ointment inside the lower eye lid.
• Ask the patient to close the eyes lightly so that the drug is evenly distributed over the eye, wipe off if any excess.
• Avoid touching the eye lid with dropper or tip of tube of other patients.
• If advised cover the eye with pad and bandage.
• Instruct the patient not to rub after application of eye drop or ointment.
• Record the procedure in patient chart.
• If any untoward effects, clean the eye with plain cold water and intimate the doctor in charge

Procedure for putting Ear drop

• Position the patient so that the affected ear is above the level of the opposite ear.
• Use a small swab stick or twist a piece of cotton wool to make wick, moisten this with cool and boiled water and use it to clean the ear of any discharge.
• To straighten the ear canal, puli the ear gently backward and upward and downwards in children.
• Use a stick swab or cotton wicks to dry the ear after cleaning it.
• Discard the swab or stick after the single use.
• Instil ear drop as prescribed, and plug the ear loosely with piece of cotton wool to keep out the dust.
• Record the procedure in chart.
• If there is any discharge or heavy wax, it should be cleaned first, before instilling ear drop.