Assessment of Analgesia, Sedation, Physical Restraints and Delirium in Patients Admitted to Spanish Intensive Care Units. ASCyD Project

An observational, descriptive, cross-sectional, prospective and multicenter study was conducted to know the usual practice (audit) in critical care units and about the assessment of pain, sedation, delirium and the use of mechanical restraints.

At the same time, the level of pain, sedation / agitation and presence of delirium were evaluated in all adult patients who were admitted to the participating units with a minimum stay of 24 hours in the unit.

Process In order to obtain the largest representation of Spanish Intensive Care Units, a network of research nurses was created with coordinators in each autonomous community. The function of the coordinators was to contact and recruit units of adult critical patients within their community. Each coordinator contacted the centers (public and private), creating a network of collaborating nurses from those units who expressed their willingness to participate and who obtained the authorization of their Research Ethics Committee. Each unit was asked to contact a collaborating nurse for the project.

Once the national network of collaborating nurses was created, through the community coordinators, each password was given to each nurse to access the platform created for data entry. The platform offered access to all the documents (methodology, timeline, recommended assessment tools, navigation tutorial for the platform).

Data collection The tool used was an ad hoc survey with online access which consisted of 2 blocks. The first block asked about the characteristics of the units, the nurse-patient ratio, the existence of protocols and the usual practice for the control of pain, sedation / agitation, delirium and the use of mechanical restraints in the unit.