Portable Urinal Use: Assisting a Female Client (Nursing)

00:01 In most situations, a female may be using a bedpan rather than a portable urine because they are more common.

00:07 But if your facility or patient has these, we want to show you how to use one.

00:12 Now they work exactly like a male portable urinal device, with the exception that they either have a funnel and it attaches to the end, or they're shaped differently.

00:22 This is going to help allow for cupping of the platform to slide under and catch the urine flow. Now the same principles of positioning and gravity still apply here.

00:33 It is also important to think about the context of why your patient is either unable to stand to transfer to a bedside commode or ambulate to a toilet.

00:43 And if they're experiencing any fatigue or fluctuations in their vitals or whatever their condition may be, it may be much safer to keep them in bed.

00:54 And even if the urinal feels like a lot of trouble or it's messy, it still may be much, much better and much safer for the patient.

01:02 This time, let's consider a scenario where we are caring for an older adult female client. Now she's recovering from pneumonia.

01:11 She's very weak.

01:12 It's the end of the day.

01:13 And her care team, including you, are very concerned.

01:16 She just doesn't have the energy to stand up and void.

01:20 But you know how important it is to keep hydrating your patient and keep encouraging fluids for her.

01:25 Now consider the context and what aspects the patient can do for herself.

01:30 Remember to wash your hands, put on your gloves, and of course, provide privacy.

01:35 It's always a great idea to remember to review how to use the urinal with your client. Now we're going to position the device flat along the mattress to prevent spillage. We're going to lift the bottle up and away from the patient.

01:48 When they are done voiding, and provide hygiene to the genital area with wipes or cloth. As you remove the device, ensure that you inspect and measure and discard the urine at this time.

02:01 Make sure you provide hand hygiene to your patient.

02:03 Place your call light within reach and you as well perform hand hygiene.

02:08 You want to make sure before you leave the room, to make sure there's no other questions or needs at this point.

02:14 Let's take a look at how we use a urinal with a female patient.

02:18 Now, depending on the setting, you may not use this as often, but you could come across this when we're using the urinal with a female patient, we want to consider the context of why the patient may need the urinal, and also what the patient can do for themselves. So for this demonstration, our client can't do much for themselves.

02:37 So we're going to assist them the whole way.

02:39 Now at this point we want to go ahead and wash our hands and do our hand hygiene.

02:43 And of course, before you even start the procedure, you want to make sure you identify the patient. I'm going to put on my gloves.

02:52 And also we want to make sure we provide privacy.

02:55 So this particular procedure is very important.

02:58 And we want to make sure that we close the door, make sure no one comes in and provide privacy here and draw the curtain.

03:07 When we're talking about this particular skill, we want to go ahead and educate the patient on how we're going to do this or how they would do it themselves.

03:16 Now for this demonstration.

03:17 And because the patient is not independent, we're going to walk them through.

03:21 Okay. So Miss Smith, I'm going to go ahead and pull down your blankets, and I'm going to assist you to use the urinal today.

03:29 So this particular urinal, as you can see before we get too far, there's a funnel here.

03:34 This part of the funnel is going to go towards the patient.

03:37 So this is what we're going to do.

03:42 All right. So when I take this I want to go ahead and position the funnel opening towards the mattress. So it's a good idea to kind of push this device flat along the mattress and make sure we cup our patient and push this down flat along the mattress to prevent spillage. Now once our patient is done, we want to lift the bottle up and away from the patient when they're done voiding.

04:07 So we're going to go ahead and push this away.

04:09 We also want to make sure we're diligent here to provide Perry care.

04:13 And this is a good time to do an assessment of the patient's skin and make sure we adequately provide hygiene and wipe down our patients.

04:21 So we would want to make sure we go front to back, dispose of this, get any additional and make sure we thoroughly clean the patient's skin here.

04:32 Now once we do this, we want to go ahead and pull back for privacy.

04:36 And this is a great time before we dump our urine.

04:39 We want to make sure we inspect for clarity, color and amount and measure our urine and discard it at that point.

04:49 Now, once we've done this and we're finished with this piece, we want to provide hand hygiene to our client.

04:55 Once we've done that, we want to put the call light within reach, get rid of our gloves, and perform hand hygiene ourselves.

05:01 Now, before we leave the room, we want to make sure to ask Miss Smith.

05:04 Now, is there any other questions or anything you need before I leave the room? All right, so if she doesn't need anything, we want to make sure we put the side rails up and call light within reach before we leave.

05:15 So we have talked through the sequence of steps for using a portable urine with patients, those who are lying prone for various different reasons.

05:23 Remember that assisting patients to use these devices is an opportunity to promote hygiene. It's also a chance to evaluate their kidney function, their level of hydration. And most importantly, consider that this is a very normal and a very private act. Letting another adult, especially a stranger, help them can cause a lot of people to feel vulnerable.

05:46 In conclusion, anything you can do to promote privacy and support dignity is ideal.

05:52 Whether this is double checking to make sure the door is closed, being quiet, or making small talk. If you think this is best for your client or the given situation, and always be open to supporting the patient doing as much as for themselves as they are able to do so.

06:08 Thanks for watching.