Compliance with sedation analgesia protocols: Do clinical pharmacists have an impact?

The agreement between prescribed sedation objectives and sedation pump syringe rate adaptation is not optimal. Delays in adjustment of sedation doses are associated with an increased patient length of stay in the intensive care unit. Our objectives were to assess compliance with the approved sedation protocol and to evaluate the impact of a clinical pharmacist daily controlling sedation and analgesia scores and pump syringe rates on patients' outcomes in a critical care unit.

Prospective before/after study involving 60 adult patients divided into two groups (non-intervention and intervention groups) who received mechanical ventilation and continuous infusions of sedative and analgesic drugs in an intensive care unit. In both groups, data were collected daily in 30 mechanically ventilated patients receiving a sedation/analgesia regimen during a 3-month period according to a standardized protocol. A pharmacist was in charge of intervening with physicians when the local sedation analgesia protocol was not followed.

There were no significant differences between the groups in terms of demographic characteristics except a higher proportion of men in the intervention group (70% vs 40%, P = .019). In the control group, sedation and analgesia objectives were not prescribed in more than half the cases. Pharmacist intervention reduced sedation duration (5 [2-11] vs 2 [1-5.5] days, P = .019). The cumulative delay in adaptation of the sedation analgesia electric syringe pump was significantly decreased in the intervention group (8 [0-29.5] vs 28.5 hours [11.1-68.4], P = .034). Total doses of sedatives (midazolam, propofol) and analgesics (sufentanil, remifentanil) per patient were decreased in the intervention group compared to the control group (respectively, P = .24, P = .0009, P = .0013 and P = .0007).

Pharmacist intervention can decrease the sedation duration and the total dose of sedation medications and reinforce adherence to sedation/analgesia guidelines.