Fatique alarms in intensive care: describing the phenomenon through integrative literature review

Abstract

Objective: To analyze scientific publications about alarm monitoring and alarm fatigue phenomenon in intensive care. Methods: Integrative review of literature held in databases Lilacs, PubMed and SciELO. Results: After analyzing the productions elucidate the concepts and definitions of the phenomenon, predisposing factors and strategies to minimize them, the relationship with patient safety, achieving time frame 1993 to June 2010. Fatigue alarm occurs when a large number of alarms covers those clinically significant, enabling relevant alarms are disabled, silenced or ignored by staff. The excessive number of alarms makes indifferent staff, reducing your alertness, leading to distrust of the sense of urgency of alarms, resulting in lack of response to alarms relevant. Conclusion: The technological apparatus requires attention of professionals to ensure patient safety serious.