Evidence-Based Review and Discussion Points

Across hospital settings, patients are monitored with a variety of devices as part of their care, and when these devices detect changes in the patient’s status, an audible alarm is sounded to alert a registered nurse. In clinical areas where alarms are often triggered, nurses tend to experience a phenomenon referred to as alarm fatigue: desensitization to alarms set to alert a nurse to a change in a patient’s condition. Alarm fatigue is a notable patient safety concern. When alarms go unnoticed by registered nurses and other staff, the patient’s safety is likely to be compromised.

Despite recognition of the impact of alarm fatigue on patient safety, interventional research intended to reduce alarm fatigue remains limited. To advance interventional research in this important area, the authors of this article conducted an integrative review of the literature. The purpose of the integrative review was 2-fold. The first aim was to describe...