Are you asking the right admission questions when assessing dyspnea?
BACKGROUND
Dyspnea is an important admission parameter to detect undiagnosed cardiopulmonary conditions. The typical admission question, "Are you short of breath?" can give insufficient or misleading data.


OBJECTIVE
A group of clinical research nurses sought to improve dyspnea assessments by using a more accurate measure that would not unduly lengthen the admission process itself. The methodology used to achieve this outcome was research utilization.


METHODS
On admission, 103 patients were given the standard question "Are you short of breath?" followed by 4 Visual Analog Scales of Dyspnea (VASD). These response measures assess the degree of dyspnea in relationship to variable exertion activities on a scale of 0 to 10. All responses to VASD were analyzed using descriptive statistics.


RESULTS
The results showed that 30% of patients who responded "No" to the shortness of breath query scored 5 or more for dyspnea on the VASD. All scores of 5 or more were reported to the primary care provider for further workup.


CONCLUSIONS
The results from this project gave impetus to designing a more formal research study that could validate VASD use in clinical admission assessments.
MacDonald
Sandra
S
Nursing and Patient Care Services, National Institutes of Health Clinical Center, Bethesda, MD 20892, USA.
Yates
Jan
J
Lance
Robyn
R
Giganti
Noreen
N
Chepurko
Diana
D
D004417:Dyspnea / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000628:therapy; D006801:Humans; D008487:Medical History Taking / Q000592:standards*; D010343:Patient Admission; D012720:Severity of Illness Index