Systematic Nursing Management of University Students with Infectious Mononucleosis

Infectious Mononucleosis has been one of the most misdiagnosed entities in medicine. Its ability to mimic other diseases and the abundance of misconceptions about it have long confused both diagnosis and treatment. Since there is still no specific drug to combat this disease. patients with characteristic symptoms are treated symptomatically for the period of extended convalescence. This study was carried out to explore the possible effects of systematic nursing management on Infectious Mononucleosis patients, in order to evaluate those things that significantly influence the patient’s course of illness and recovery, in a university outpatient health service. The hypothesis formulated was: a patient with Infectious Mononucleosis who receives systematic nursing management throughout the course of his illness will, on the average, show a decreased length of illness. Random selection of twenty-four patients was made from those students seeking, or who had sought, medical care for Infectious Mononucleosis at the Student Health Service of California State University, Fullerton, California. No tools of measurement were developed especially for this study. The researcher extracted necessary information from the medical records, using a data sheet. The sample was divided into two groups: twelve patients who were seeking treatment (the experimental group), and twelve patients who had completed their treatment during the previous academic year (the control group). To assure uniformity of nursing care, the researcher provided a manual for systematic nursing management to be followed by the nurses who cared for the experimental group of patients. Although not statistically significant, the data from the study showed the findings to be in the predicted direction of the hypothesis. Interesting trends were seen indicating that some patients in the experimental group with Infectious Mononucleosis who received systematic nursing management were, on the average, able to reduce the course of their clinical symptomatology to two weeks less than that of the control group, even though their atypical lymphocyte level was higher at the time of their voluntary admission to treatment. The nurses caring for the experimental group of patients through systematic nursing management increased their Infectious Mononucleosis patient appointment load by 100 per cent, while physicians treating the same group were able to reduce their Infectious Mononucleosis patient appointment load by 31 per cent, thus freeing the physicians to devote more time to other matters and patients who required their special attention and clinical expertise. Even though some limitations were placed on this study by its small sample size and by the large variability manifested in the degree of patients’ symptomatology, nursing implication from this study has been significant in that the nurses caring for the experimental group of patients, in their extended role with physician collaboration, were able to render care comparable to that of the physicians who treated the control group of patients