Emergency Nurses' Knowledge, Perceptions, and Practices Toward Alarm Fatigue and the Obstacles to Alarm Management: A Path Analysis.

INTRODUCTION

Frequent and long-term exposure to clinical alarms can cause emergency nurses to lose their trust in alarms, delay their response, and even disable or mute these alarms.

METHODS

A cross-sectional study was conducted to assess emergency nurses' knowledge, perceptions, and practices toward clinical alarm fatigue and investigate the perceived obstacles they face when managing clinical alarms.

RESULTS

Less than half of emergency nurses were unfamiliar with the term "alarm fatigue" (40.8%), lacked knowledge of the causes of alarm fatigue (42.3%), and were unaware of how to prevent alarm fatigue (45.7%). Emergency nurses' knowledge of clinical alarms was found to have a significant negative correlation with their perceived obstacles to the management of these alarms (r = -6.855; P < .001) and a significant positive correlation with their practice in the management of clinical alarms (r = 2.576; P = .010). In contrast, perceived obstacles to the effective management of clinical alarms were found to have a significant positive correlation with emergency nurses' negative perception of clinical alarms (r = 12.449; P < .001). A significant negative correlation was observed between emergency nurses' negative perception of clinical alarms and their practice in the management of these alarms (r = -2.697; P = .007).

DISCUSSION

Clinical alarms represent an additional burden for emergency nurses where a substantial proportion of nurses have limited familiarity with alarm fatigue, lack knowledge about its causes and prevention strategies, and do not customize patient alarm parameters throughout their shifts.