Alarm fatigue and the implications for patient safety

ABSTRACT Objective: To measure the response time of health professionals before sound alarm activation and the implications for patient safety. Method: This is a quantitative and observational research conducted in an Adult Intensive Care Unit of a teaching hospital. Three researchers conducted non-participant observations for seven hours. Data collection occurred simultaneously in 20 beds during the morning shift. When listening the alarm activation, the researchers turned on the stopwatches and recorded the motive, the response time and the professional conduct. During collection, the unit had 90% of beds occupied and teams were complete. Result: We verified that from the 103 equipment activated, 66.03% of alarms fatigued. Nursing was the professional category that most provided care (31.06%) and the multi-parameter monitor was the device that alarmed the most (66.09%). Conclusion: Results corroborate the absence or delay of the response of teams, suggesting that relevant alarms might have been underestimated, compromising patient safety.

摘要
研究目的：测量医护人员对声响警报的响应时长，及其对患者安全的影响。
研究方法：本研究为定量观察性研究，在某教学医院的成人重症监护病房（Adult Intensive Care Unit，ICU）开展。3名研究人员开展了总计7小时的非参与式观察。早班时段内，研究人员同步在20张病床开展数据采集工作。当监测到警报触发时，研究人员即刻启动秒表，并记录警报触发原因、响应时长及医护人员的处置行为。数据采集期间，该病房床位使用率达90%，医护团队配置齐全。
研究结果：本研究共纳入103次设备警报触发事件，其中66.03%的警报属于警报疲劳（alarm fatigue）范畴。护理人员是提供处置响应最多的职业类别（占比31.06%），多参数监护仪（multi-parameter monitor）是触发警报最频繁的设备（占比66.09%）。
研究结论：本次研究结果证实了医护团队存在响应缺失或响应延迟的问题，提示临床可能低估了相关警报的重要性，进而对患者安全造成损害。