Work practices relating to intubation in operating rooms in Sweden.

A survey into the current usage of tracheal tubes in operating rooms was carried out in Sweden by sending a questionnaire to anaesthetists in charge of anaesthetic departments in 90 acute hospitals, which included seven teaching hospitals. The object was to determine how far the recent advances in tube, cuff design, and material had influenced the attitudes and work practices of anaesthetists. Fifty-eight replies were recorded (a 64.4% response rate). All teaching hospitals and the majority of other hospitals favoured tubes with high-volume, low-pressure cuffs. Most hospitals used size 9 orotracheal tubes in adult male and size 8 in adult female patients. Seventy-one per cent of teaching hospitals used both local anaesthetic jelly for lubricating tubes and topical laryngeal spray prior to intubation. Nasal decongestants were used by only 14.2% of teaching hospitals prior to nasal intubation. Over three-fourths of the hospitals were in favour of inflating the cuff to no-leak ventilation. Just over half of non-teaching hospital and two-thirds of teaching hospital monitored intracuff pressure.