RECOVERY POSITIONS FOR UNCONSCIOUS PATIENT WITH NORMAL BREATHING: AN INTEGRATIVE LITERATURE REVIEW

Abstract

Background: The study of recovery position has become an important aspect of life-saving in certain situations such as cardiac arrest, accident victims and other medical problems. Nevertheless, there are only a little information revealing recovery position on unconscious people but breathing normally. Aims: This integrative literature review aimed to identify the best position for unconscious people who are breathing normally by analyzing each position comprising lateral recovery position, HAINES position, and lateral trauma position. Methods: The literature search consisted of electronic databases such as CINAHL, PubMed/ Medline, and Google Scholar was performed using the terms recovery position, unconscious, breathing with excluded children and baby. Only articles with the English language, published between 2009 and 2018 were included. Results: Five articles were included in this review. All of the articles were academic journals type. Three articles seemed to use the experimental method with a human subject or cadaver. One article was likely a literature riview and the last was a letter to editorial. Conclusion: There were four positions considered as the best recovery position based on the medical situations: lateral recovery position, Haines Position, The modified HAINES position, and lateral trauma position. Further research is needed to obtain more evidence.