A patient's decision aid for vascular access placement in the emergency department

Vascular access device placement is one of the most routinely performed procedures in the emergency department. Despite its high usage, most patients have limited knowledge about vascular access device placement. Patient decision aids have been utilized heavily in non-emergency department settings to provide basic clinical information regarding a patient's medical care options. In this study, we investigated whether exposure to a patient decision aid on vascular access devices and patients' experiences with vascular access devices would influence their vascular access device preference during an acute care episode.

Patients in this institutional review board-approved study were enrolled prospectively in the emergency department at a busy level 1 trauma institution. A patient decision aid on vascular access device was constructed using criteria developed by the International Patient Decision Aid Standards. All participants were exposed to the patient decision aid and were asked to complete two questionnaires, and two tests.

Fifty subjects (50) were enrolled prospectively in the emergency department. The mean pretest score was 17.2% (95% confidence interval, 0.54-1.18), while the mean post-test score was 72.4% (95% confidence interval, 3.15-4.09). We found that patients who were exposed to the patient decision aid preferred landmark-based peripheral intravenous lines over ultrasound-guided peripheral intravenous lines in this data set.

The result from this analysis indicated that most patients visiting the emergency department are not knowledgeable about their options related to vascular access device placement. The observed increase in the average correct responses on the post-test indicates that a patient decision aid can be an effective educational tool in the emergency department.