Education on Patient-Ventilator Synchrony, Clinicians' Knowledge Level, and Duration of Mechanical Ventilation

Improved recognition of patient-ventilator asynchrony may reduce duration of mechanical ventilation.

To evaluate the effects of education about patient-ventilator synchrony on clinicians' level of knowledge and patients' mean duration of mechanical ventilation.

A quasi-experimental 1-group pretest-posttest study was performed in a 16-bed intensive care unit. Analysis included 33 clinicians and 97 ventilator patients. The intervention consisted of PowerPoint lectures on patient-ventilator synchrony. Data included test scores before and after the education, scores on the Acute Physiology and Chronic Health Evaluation II, and mean duration of mechanical ventilation. Differences in scores before and after education, mean duration of mechanical ventilation, and mean health evaluation scores before and after education were determined by using t tests.

Of the 33 clinicians, 17 were registered nurses and 16 were respiratory therapists. Posttest scores were 63% higher than pretest scores (P < .001). Before the lecture, 47 patients had a mean health evaluation score of 21 (SD, 7.8) and mean duration of mechanical ventilation of 5.4 (SD, 4.6) days. After the lecture, 50 patients had a mean health evaluation score of 24.6 (SD, 8.2) and mean duration of mechanical ventilation of 4.8 (SD, 4.3) days. Mean health evaluation score was marginally higher after the lecture (P = .054). Mean duration of mechanical ventilation did not differ (P = .54).

Clinicians' test scores increased significantly after patient-ventilator synchrony lectures. Mean duration of mechanical ventilation decreased by 0.6 days and health evaluation scores were marginally higher after the lectures.