THE USE OF CENTRAL VENOUS PRESSURE FOR THE ASSESSMENT OF PATIENTS’ HEMODYNAMICS

Konstantinos Giakoumidakis*, Nikolaos V. Fotos, Anastasia A. Chatziefstratiou, Eleni Dokoutsidou and Hero Brokalaki

ABSTRACT

Introduction: Little is known on how nurses use and estimate central venous pressure (CVP) measurements for the assessment of hemodynamic patients’ status. Aim: To investigate the extent in which nurses use CVP to assess intensive care unit (ICU) patients’ hemodynamics, through a new-developed Score, and the parameters that affect this CVP usage. Material & Methods: It was a cross sectional study of 120 critical care nurses. Data collection was performed through a structured 8-item questionnaire (CVP Score) for addressing how nurses use CVP as an indicative parameter for patients’ hemodynamics. Results: The Cronbach alpha was 0.89. The mean [±Standard Deviation (SD)] CVP Score was 15.8 (±5.7). Males (70.6% vs 37.2%, p=0.02) had significantly higher CVP Scores compared with females. Conclusions: CVP Score is a reliable questionnaire. Nurses hypo-use CVP, as a tool, for hemodynamic status assessment of ICU patients. However, males are characterized by a significant higher use of CVP.

Keywords: Central venous pressure, critical care nursing, hemodynamics, intensive care units, nurses.