Anaesthetists' attitudes towards awareness and depth-of-anaesthesia monitoring

✍ Scribed by P. S. Myles; J. A. Symons; K. Leslie

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 2003
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 81 KB
• Volume: 58
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0003-2409
• DOI: 10.1046/j.1365-2044.2003.02955.x

✦ Synopsis

Summary Advances in technology have resulted in the development of several depth‐of‐anaesthesia monitors. Whether any of these monitors can reduce the incidence of awareness is an important issue for anaesthetists and their patients. We therefore surveyed a random selection of anaesthetists, asking for their opinions of awareness and depth‐of‐anaesthesia monitoring in current clinical practice. Approximately half (52%) of the anaesthetists surveyed had experienced a patient with awareness. Anaesthetists considered that they had a lower incidence of awareness in their own practice when compared with others, 1:5000 vs. 1:10 000 (p < 0.001). Anaesthetists rated awareness on an11‐point scale as only a moderate problem, median (interquartile range) 5 (2–7). Older anaesthetists were less likely to rate the importance of awareness highly (p = 0.009) and to use awareness monitoring (p = 0.001). Anaesthetists are prepared to use depth‐of‐anaesthesia monitoring more widely if it can be shown to prevent most cases of awareness in routine practice.