Title : Alarm fatigue as a nursing occupational hazard: A call to action
Abstract:
Background: Oncology nurses already experience compassion fatigue due to their emotional commitment to ensuring optimal patient outcomes. To support and improve patient safety, clinical alarms increase the situational awareness of what is going on with a patient, which helps prioritize efficiency and is critical to clinical decision-making. However, an increasing frequency of simultaneous false-positive clinical alarms has led to diminished distrust in patient alarms, alarm desensitization, and, subsequently, the phenomenon of alarm fatigue.
Methods: Guided by Roy’s Adaptation Model (RAM), this qualitative phenomenological study examined oncology nurses’ alarm fatigue experiences and their current adaptive states. This study was conducted on a purposive sample of nine nurses from two oncology units at a large academic Magnet-recognized hospital affiliated with a highly ranked cancer center. Qualitative data was collected using a six-question, 30-minute semi-structured interview in a private conference room on the nursing unit and via HIPAA-compliant Zoom sessions.
Findings: This study’s findings yielded several key themes, the most prevalent being that oncology nurses felt exhausted and overstimulated by the simultaneous ringing of the alarms and adopted more physiologically and psychologically maladaptive coping strategies than adaptive coping strategies. Several nurses reported experiencing psychological and physical effects such as insomnia related to auditory hallucinations, negative emotions such as anxiety, resentment, guilt, and sadness, and trauma bonding with other unit nurses. The consensus was that the high frequency of false, non-emergent, and non-actionable alarms disrupted their workflow and contributed to a general desensitization to alarms.
Conclusions/Application to Practice: Alarm fatigue further complicates the psychosocial work environment and how oncology nurses adapt to their demanding yet critical roles in providing optimal patient care. Efforts should be made to introduce practical interventions that reduce cognitive overload, shift non-nursing responsibilities to other staff, reengineer workflows to minimize frequent interruptions, and efficiency-focused process changes.
Audience Take Away:
- Learners will be able to understand the effects of alarm fatigue.
- Learners will be able to identify adaptive and maladaptive alarm fatigue coping strategies.
- Learners will be able to understand the importance of implementing necessary changes to reduce alarm fatigue within their institutions.
