Healthc Inform Res.  2016 Jan;22(1):46-53. 10.4258/hir.2016.22.1.46.

Clinical Alarms in Intensive Care Units: Perceived Obstacles of Alarm Management and Alarm Fatigue in Nurses

• Cho OM
• Kim H
• Lee YW
• Cho I

• KMID: 2166916
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.4258/hir.2016.22.1.46

Abstract

OBJECTIVES
The purpose of this descriptive study was to investigate the current situation of clinical alarms in intensive care unit (ICU), nurses' recognition of and fatigue in relation to clinical alarms, and obstacles in alarm management.
METHODS
Subjects were ICU nurses and devices from 48 critically ill patient cases. Data were collected through direct observation of alarm occurrence and questionnaires that were completed by the ICU nurses. The observation time unit was one hour block. One bed out of 56 ICU beds was randomly assigned to each observation time unit.
RESULTS
Overall 2,184 clinical alarms were counted for 48 hours of observation, and 45.5 clinical alarms occurred per hour per subject. Of these, 1,394 alarms (63.8%) were categorized as false alarms. The alarm fatigue score was 24.3 +/- 4.0 out of 35. The highest scoring item was "always get bothered due to clinical alarms". The highest scoring item in obstacles was "frequent false alarms, which lead to reduced attention or response to alarms".
CONCLUSIONS
Nurses reported that they felt some fatigue due to clinical alarms, and false alarms were also obstacles to proper management. An appropriate hospital policy should be developed to reduce false alarms and nurses' alarm fatigue.

Keyword

Critical Care; Nurse; Clinical Alarms; Fatigue; Recognition

MeSH Terms

Clinical Alarms*
Critical Care*
Critical Illness
Fatigue*
Humans
Intensive Care Units*

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