Portable Urinal Use: Assisting a Male Client (Nursing)

00:01 Welcome to Portable Urinal Assistance with Samantha Rhea.

00:05 Now, your role in assisting patients to use a portable urine may be as simple as providing them with a urinal and making sure they know how to use it.

00:14 Since some come with a cap that opens and shuts, this may need explaining.

00:18 In the inpatient environment, many patients are given urinals, so the health care team can measure their output.

00:25 It will be important to talk to your patient about letting you know when they have used it, and deciding together where to put it when they're done.

00:33 So in that scenario, you're probably imagining a male patient who can stand and walk around. But there are other situations in which patients, both male and female, may need you to physically help them use a portable urinal.

00:47 One of the most common reasons why patients may need assistance to use this urinal is after a surgical procedure.

00:54 Many surgical procedures require patients to lay flat for extended period of time afterwards, so when the patient has the urge to void, they can't stand to transfer to a bedside commode to avoid.

01:06 Since these time periods are limited, placing a urinary catheter creates a risk of infection, and in these situations, use of a urinal while laying down is necessary.

01:17 However, since most people don't routinely use a portable urinal.

01:20 It can be awkward to do this alone.

01:23 In other situations, patients may be acutely or chronically debilitated or lack the physical dexterity to manipulate the device themselves, and in some cases, you may need to only position the device, and in others you may need to do every step.

01:38 What you will discover is that this can seem like a simple task, but because patient situations are unique, you will need to adapt to what you do as well.

01:47 Let's look at portable urinal assistance with a male patient.

01:51 So first we want to make sure we consider the context of why the patient may need it and what aspects the patient can do for themselves.

01:59 Everything they can do themselves or independently is really encouraged.

02:04 And secondly, we want to wash our hands and put our on our gloves.

02:07 We want to ensure privacy for our patients and review how to use the urinal.

02:13 Now this is where we want to show or assist the patient to place the end of the penis in the top of the device itself, and make sure you position the device below the bladder to prevent spillage.

02:25 And at this point, we want to allow the patient or assist them a tissue, a cloth, a wipe and be ready to wipe the urethral opening as you remove the device.

02:35 Once you obtain your specimen, you want to inspect the specimen.

02:39 Look for clarity color.

02:41 We want to measure the amount and make sure afterwards we discard the urine.

02:45 And lastly, we want to provide hygiene for our patients with a wipe or a cloth to clean the genital area and then discard.

02:53 Next we want to provide hand hygiene to our patients.

02:56 Make sure that urinal is also within the patient's reach.

03:00 So for whatever reason, if the patient can independently use this, we want to make sure they can grab it at any time.

03:06 Place your call light within reach.

03:08 Perform hand hygiene and make sure there's no other questions before you leave the room.

03:13 All right. So now I'm going to demo with you how to use a portable urine with your male patient. So of course you want to consider the context of why.

03:21 Maybe the patient doesn't need help using the urinal.

03:23 So for today, Mr.

03:25 Smith is not able to help me at all.

03:27 So I'm going to show all of the all of the steps I would do if a patient was not independent. Also, if your patient was independent, you want to try to allow the patient to do as much for themselves as possible.

03:40 So make sure you, of course, are in the right room and identify your patient.

03:43 We're going to wash our hands and do our hand hygiene and put on our gloves.

03:52 Now patient privacy is always important, but in particular this skill you want to make sure the door is closed.

03:58 No one's going to come in.

03:59 You provide privacy for the patient.

04:03 Now with your client you want to make sure and educate how to use the urinal.

04:07 Now, this now in this particular procedure, I'm going to talk to Mr.

04:11 Smith and let him know what I'm doing each step.

04:13 So at this point, this is a good time to go ahead and pull back the covers.

04:18 All right, Mr. Smith, I'm going to go ahead and pull back your covers.

04:22 And I'm going to make sure to take the lid off of your urinal here.

04:26 When you do that and then once we do that, I'm going to make sure I'm going to put your penis at the end into the urinal to make sure we catch all of that.

04:36 So as I'm doing this, I want to make sure I pull the urinal down and push the urinal back into the mattress and below the level of the bladder to prevent any spillage.

04:46 Now, once we've done this and the patient's done and grab your cloth beforehand, I'm going to make sure after they get done voiding, I want to go ahead and pull this out. It's a good idea to kind of push the urinal back into the mattress so it doesn't tip. And once I pull this out, I want to go ahead and be ready to cleanse the patient.

05:07 Now, I want to take a quick moment just to kind of talk about this.

05:11 If you have a client that is not circumcised, you want to make sure at this point this is a great opportunity to do peri care.

05:19 So for example, if a patient was not circumcised, you want to make sure to pull the foreskin back.

05:24 You want to make sure you thoroughly clean on each side, grab a new wipe and also go down the middle. So this is a great time to assess the skin and make sure you you give good hygiene care here once you're done.

05:38 If they're uncircumcised, make sure you pull the foreskin back over or if your patient is uncircumcised again, great time to go ahead and do primary care at this moment.

05:47 Now, once we've done this, we want to go ahead and make sure we cover the client as quickly as possible as we can.

05:53 And then we're going to go ahead and look at our urine.

05:56 We're going to inspect clarity color and amount.

05:58 And when you guys use these urinals most of the time they're calibrated here.

06:03 So you want to make sure you look at the number.

06:05 And you want to make sure you make a note of this because we're going to document this.

06:08 So now we're going to go ahead and put our lid back on.

06:11 Make sure you close this.

06:13 And then we're going to place the urinal within reach.

06:15 Now if the patient was independent you may want to ask about their dominant hand.

06:19 And I like to hook this to the side rail so it's easy for them to grab.

06:25 Now at this point we want to make sure the lights within reach.

06:28 And we've already helped our patient making sure they also have hand hygiene.

06:32 We want to perform hand hygiene ourselves.

06:35 And then before we leave the room, we want to make sure and ask Mr.

06:38 Smith, do you have any other questions or concerns or needs before I leave the room? And then of course, always make sure your side rails are up. When assisting a male patient, most of the consideration is about positioning the penis directly into the device in such a way that there's not urine splashing back towards the patient or spilling into the bed.

06:58 Another consideration is that there's the device doesn't overflow.

07:02 So if you think this might happen, it can be helpful to have a second urinal ready, or put a blue chuck pad or a towel under the patient's genitals as the patient urinates.