Patient positioning on the operating table and patient safety: A systematic review and meta-analysis.
Signe Berit Bentsen, Geir Egil Eide, Siri Wiig and 3 others
PMID 38186052WHAT IT FOUND
Patient positioning during surgery was linked to nerve, skin, eye and muscle injuries.
Prone positioning had the highest reported harm risk, but occurrence was uncertain across studies.
Key findings
01The pooled risk of any positioning-related harm was 0.2%, but the studies varied widely (I2=100%).
02Prone positioning had the highest reported risk of harm, with an overall risk of 0.33.
03In prone spine surgery, perioperative pressure ulcers were reported in 23% to 27% of patients.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for RNs
Read the rest of this summary
You get three full summaries a month, free, and we do not ask for a card. Search, the TL;DRs and your library stay unlimited either way.
What it does not show
The included studies did not define harmful incidents or describe patient positioning consistently, so some incidents may have been missed. Harm was not recorded with standardized prospective tools in the included reports. The evidence was mainly from register-based and non-randomized studies, with only 2 randomized trials among 22 papers. Risk of bias was moderate to critical in many studies. The pooled estimate had very large heterogeneity (I2=100%), so the 0.2% overall risk should not be read as a precise incidence.
Declared interests
No funding was reported, and the authors declared no conflicts of interest.
The easy way to misread this
Do not read the pooled 0.2% risk as a firm incidence rate. The studies varied widely (I2=100%), and harmful incidents were not defined or recorded consistently, so the true occurrence is unclear.