Objective:

To identify the difficulties of intensive care unit (ICU) staff in interpreting renal extracorporeal circuit pressures using photographs

Material and Method:

Cross-sectional descriptive study conducted in two multi-purpose intensive care units with 20 beds and 82 healthcare professionals (doctors/nurses) during November 2020. Fifteen photographs validated by two experts of the Prismaflex® screen were used, with four response options: line-in problems, line-out problems, coagulation, filter and correct operation. One was correct

Results:

A total of 66 professionals participated (80.5% sample). A total of 71.7% (95%CI 68.8-74.4) of the photographs were correctly classified. The mean number of correct answers was 9.9 (SD=2.4).

Photographs interpreted with the greatest difficulty were those of the return line, with a correctness rate of 50%. Trained professionals obtained a mean number of correct answers of 10.8 (SD=2.5) compared to 9.1 (SD=2.1) for untrained professionals (p<0.01).

A positive linear association was established between seniority and number of correct answers (r=0.5, p=0.01). The mean number of correct answers for nurses was 10.1 (SD=2.2), compared to 9.4 (SD=3) for physicians (p=0.4).

Conclusions:

A quarter of the photographs were misclassified, especially those concerning venous access. Trained and more experienced professionals have fewer difficulties. While the nurse is in charge of circuit control, there are no differences between physicians and nurses. Especially junior nurses need to be trained to know the haemodynamic of the extracorporeal circuit, thus contributing to improve the effectiveness of the treatment.