Nursing Care of Infants and Children With Bronchiolitis

Abstract

Bronchiolitis is the most common cause of lower respiratory infection in the first year
of life. It is a leading cause of acute illness and hospitalization for infants and young children
worldwide. Previous studies have demonstrated that at least 1% of children younger than 24
months of age are hospitalized for bronchiolitis. These hospitalizations have been found to consume
a significant amount of health care resources. The primary treatment of bronchiolitis remains
largely supportive with administration of fluids and supplementary oxygen, observation
and mechanical ventilation if needed. Other types of treatment remain controversial. Successful
treatment of this diagnosis requires coordination of care of a multidisciplinary team. Pediatric
nurses and advanced practice pediatric nurses in both primary and acute care clinical settings
can play a major role in educating other health care professionals on the use of Evidence-based
practice and why it is important to decrease costs and improve patients’ outcome by changing
the traditional and habitual use of diagnostic and therapeutic options that are no longer recommended
by the most recent guidelines. The purpose of this review was to identify the best
evidence available for the updated management of infants and children with bronchiolitis. This
updated simplified management of infants with bronchiolitis would result in not only decreasing
the cost of care but also result in a better outcome as mentioned in guidelines according to
the recent literature.