[French national survey on difficult intubation in intensive care units]

Assessing the theoretical knowledge, practical experience of French intensivists, and their compliance with French Anesthesiology and Critical Care Society's difficult airway algorithms of the expert's SFAR conference of 2006.

Prospective and descriptive national survey.

An anonymous questionnaire with 40 questions was emailed to physicians working in intensive care units in France.

Five hundred and eight intensivists answered the survey. Ninety-seven percent of physicians reported having a portable storage unit for difficult intubation. As for practical experience, 421 physicians (83 %) have set up less than 10 laryngeal mask airway, 257 (51 %) have performed less than 10 intubations under fibroscopy and 269 (53 %) have never performed a cricothyroidotomy on mannequin, and 331 (65 %) on a patient. In case of emergency intubation, 29 % of them do not use a rapid sequence induction. Three hundred physicians (59 %) use capnography as monitoring of the endotracheal position. Two hundred and nine (42 %) consider they have not been trained to difficult intubation and 443 (87 %) would like to participate in high fidelity simulations mannequin.

National airway management algorithm was insufficiently followed. Alternative techniques do not seem to be mastered by all physicians. French intensivists expect more training on difficult intubation, including high fidelity simulation.