Details

Autor(en) / Beteiligte

• Otero, Remedios
• Uresandi, Fernando
• Cayuela, Aurelio
• Blanquer, José
• Cabezudo, Miguel A.
• De Gregorio, Miguel A.
• Lobo, José L.
• Nauffal, Dolores
• Oribe, Mikel

Titel

Use of venous thromboembolism prophylaxis for surgical patients: a multicentre analysis of practice in Spain

Ist Teil von

• The European journal of surgery, 2001-03, Vol.167 (3), p.163-167

Ort / Verlag

UK: Taylor & Francis, Ltd

Erscheinungsjahr

2001

Link zum Volltext

Quelle

Taylor & Francis Journals Auto-Holdings Collection

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• Objective: To assess the use of venous thromboembolism prophylaxis in surgical patients. Design: Retrospective multicentre study. Setting: Eight acute‐care teaching hospitals with more than 400 beds, Spain. Patients: Medical records of all consecutive patients undergoing operations in the general surgical and trauma and orthopaedic services during the month of April, 1997, were randomly selected. Intervention: The sample size for each type of operation (general, trauma‐orthopaedic) was calculated from the number of operations done at each hospital (with an absolute precision of 5%, and an α error of 5%) and the prevalence of the use of venous thromboembolism prophylaxis obtained from a random sample of 50 records (25 from patients in general surgery and 25 from patients in orthopaedic surgery) from each centre. Main outcome measures: Appropriate and inappropriate pharmacological prophylaxis defined according to a combination of risk categories for venous thromboembolism, doses of antithrombotic agents given, time of starting prophylaxis, and its duration. Results: A total of 1848 medical records (general surgery, n = 1025; trauma‐orthopaedic surgery, n = 823) were included. Physical methods (elastic stockings, intermittent pneumatic compression) were used in only 0.3% of patients. Pharmacological prophylaxis consisted of low molecular weight heparin in 99% of cases. The percentage given heparin‐based prophylaxis was 54%. Overall, appropriate prophylaxis was given in 1175 patients (64%). Use of thromboprophylaxis ranged from 27% to 70% among the participating hospitals. Prophylaxis was more likely to be appropiate in orthopaedic patients (577, 70%) than in general surgical patients (598, 58%) in both the high and moderate risk categories. Conclusions: Given the large variability between the participating hospitals, more specific protocols and recommendations about prophylaxis of thromboembolism in surgical patients are needed. Copyright © 2001 Taylor and Francis Ltd.