Department of Anaesthesiology Nursing & Intensive Care, Medical University in Gdansk, 80211 Gdansk, Poland.
Intensive Care Unit, University Clinical Centre in Gdansk, 80211 Gdansk, Poland.
Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2020 Nov 13;17(22):8409. doi: 10.3390/ijerph17228409.
In conditions of intensive therapy, where the patients treated are in a critical condition, alarms are omnipresent. Nurses, as they spend most of their time with patients, monitoring their condition 24 h, are particularly exposed to so-called alarm fatigue. The purpose of this study is to review the literature available on the perception of clinical alarms by nursing personnel and its impact on work in the ICU environment.
A systematic review of the literature was carried out according to the guidelines of the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analysis (PRISMA) protocol. The content of electronic databases was searched through, i.e., PubMed, OVID, EBSCO, ProQuest Nursery, and Cochrane Library. The keywords used in the search included: "intensive care unit," "nurse," "alarm fatigue," "workload," and "clinical alarm." The review also covered studies carried out among nurses employed at an adult intensive care unit. Finally, seven publications were taken into consideration. Data were analyzed both descriptively and quantitatively, calculating a weighted average for specific synthetized data.
In the analyzed studies, 389 nurses were tested, working in different intensive care units. Two studies were based on a quality model, while the other five described the problem of alarms in terms of quantity, based on the HTF (Healthcare Technology Foundation) questionnaire. Intensive care nurses think that alarms are burdensome and too frequent, interfering with caring for patients and causing reduced trust in alarm systems. They feel overburdened with an excessive amount of duties and a continuous wave of alarms. Having to operate modern equipment, which is becoming more and more advanced, takes time that nurses would prefer to dedicate to their patients. There is no clear system for managing the alarms of monitoring devices.
Alarm fatigue may have serious consequences, both for patients and for nursing personnel. It is necessary to introduce a strategy of alarm management and for measuring the alarm fatigue level.
在强化治疗条件下，接受治疗的患者病情危急，警报无处不在。护士在重症监护病房（ICU）中与患者共度大部分时间，24 小时监测患者的病情，因此特别容易受到所谓的“报警疲劳”的影响。本研究旨在综述护理人员对临床报警的感知及其对 ICU 环境中工作的影响的相关文献。
根据系统评价和荟萃分析（PRISMA）指南进行系统文献回顾。通过 PubMed、OVID、EBSCO、ProQuest Nursery 和 Cochrane Library 等电子数据库搜索内容。搜索关键词包括：“重症监护病房”、“护士”、“报警疲劳”、“工作量”和“临床报警”。该综述还涵盖了在成人重症监护病房工作的护士进行的研究。最终，考虑了七项出版物。对数据进行了描述性和定量分析，对特定综合数据计算了加权平均值。
在分析的研究中，对 389 名在不同重症监护病房工作的护士进行了测试。两项研究基于质量模型，而其他五项研究则根据 HTF（医疗技术基金会）问卷从数量上描述了报警问题。重症监护护士认为报警既繁琐又过于频繁，干扰了对患者的护理，并导致对报警系统的信任度降低。他们感到负担过重，工作量过大，警报不断。操作越来越先进的现代设备需要时间，而护士宁愿将这些时间用于照顾患者。没有明确的监测设备报警管理系统。
报警疲劳可能对患者和护理人员都产生严重后果。有必要引入报警管理策略和测量报警疲劳水平。
