Regional anaesthesia practices: insights from a European survey

The use of regional anaesthesia has increased and evolved over the past two decades but to what extent is unclear. Moreover, there is no clear standardisation of best practice in the current European landscape, which could result in inconsistencies in regional anaesthesia in practice.

The objective of this survey was to explore regional anaesthesia practices across Europe, including the differences in procedures, use of ultrasound, reporting of complications, guidelines, training and patient safety implementation.

A Faculty of European regional anaesthesia experts developed a survey of 27 questions focused on respondent and institution profile, anaesthesia services, patient and safety management, training, use of guidelines, and the implementation of NRFit^TM [neuraxial device connectors that meet the International Organisation for Standardisation (ISO) requirements].

The survey was disseminated across several European countries via professional networks.

There were 794 respondents from 36 European countries.

The survey demonstrated that use of regional anaesthesia is growing in Europe and is supported by new technologies. Although some results are consistent with expected trends and applications (e.g. procedures predominantly performed by anaesthesiologists), there are inconsistencies in practice across European countries, especially in the specific regional anaesthesia procedures utilised for different clinical applications and the recording and reporting of regional anaesthesia complications. These inconsistencies also extended to which guidelines are primarily followed and how training is implemented. There were also variations in the general awareness and uptake of the ISO standard for NRFit.

The survey results highlight a clear need for standardisation and consistency in the use and management of regional anaesthesia across Europe. The faculty put forth several calls to action that could provide major steps in the right direction towards meeting that goal, including the establishment of European best practices, development of a complication reporting system and implementation of educational programmes to highlight the importance of NRFit.