A Survey of the Incidence and Consequences of Invasive Blood Pressure Measuring Errors Caused by Arterial Line Occlusion

Objective: The objective is to investigate the incidence and consequences of arterial line occlusion during invasive blood pressure monitoring in the form of questionnaire survey. Methods: The questionnaires were randomly distributed to the anesthesiologists who participated the 22nd annual meeting of Chinese society of anesthesiology. The main contents of this survey included the arterial line managing status, the incidence of arterial line occlusion, the effects of arterial line occlusion on the anesthesiologists’ therapy and consequences caused by arterial line occlusion. Results: Totally 294 questionnaires were collected, in which 261 questionnaires were valid. In all respondents, 28.3% expressed that they could not flush arterial line on time, and 95.4% had experienced flushing arterial line only or sometimes or occasionally when the arterial waveform was not normal. Furthermore, 93.9% had experienced partial occlusion of the arterial line, and 79.3% had experienced complete occlusion. According to the serious recall of the respondents, the incidence of partial arterial line occlusion was 17.7% ± 22.0%, and the incidence of complete arterial line occlusion was 3.6% ± 8.1%. For all the respondents, 89.7% had experienced suspecting arterial line occlusion while real hypotension occurred, 65.1% had experienced not treating hypotension timely due to this suspicion, and 31% had experienced serious consequences caused by this suspicion. Conclusion: The incidence of arterial line occlusion is high during invasive blood pressure monitoring, which is a threat to the patients’ safety. So, intensive attention should be paid to the arterial line management.