Oxygen therapy multicentric study--a nationwide audit to oxygen therapy procedures in internal medicine wards

Oxygen therapy is a common and important treatment in Internal Medicine wards, however, several studies report that it isn't provided accordingly with the best of care. The goal of this work is to evaluate oxygen therapy procedures in Portuguese Internal Medicine wards, comparing them to the standards established by the British Thoracic Society (BTS) in its consensus statement "BTS guideline for emergency oxygen use in adult patients". Between September 3rd and 23rd 2010, each one of the 24 enrolled hospitals audited the oxygen therapy procedures for one randomly chosen day. All Internal Medicine inpatients under oxygen therapy or with oxygen prescription were included. Data was collected regarding oxygen prescription, administration and monitoring. Of the 1549 inpatients, 773 met inclusion criteria. There was an oxygen prescription in 93,4%. Most prescriptions were by a fixed dose (82,4%), but only 11,6% of those stated all the required parameters. Absence of oxygen therapy duration and monitoring were the most frequent errors. Oxygen was administered to only 77,0% of the patients with fixed dose prescriptions. FiO(2) or flow rate and the delivery device were the same as prescribed in 70,9 and 89,2% of the patients, respectively. Out of the 127 patients with oxygen therapy prescriptions by target SatO(2) range, 82,7% were on the prescribed SatO(2) objective range. Several errors were found in oxygen therapy procedures, particularly regarding fixed dose prescriptions, jeopardizing the patients. Although recommended by BTS, oxygen therapy prescriptions by target SatO(2) range are still a minority.