title: Drugs given by a syringe driver: a prospective multicentre survey of palliative care services in the UK.
abstract: The use of a syringe driver to administer drugs by continuous subcutaneous infusion is common practice in the UK. Over time, drug combinations used in a syringe driver are likely to change and the aim of this survey was to obtain a more recent snapshot of practice. On four separate days, at two-week intervals, a questionnaire was completed for every syringe driver in use by 15 palliative care services. Of 336 syringe drivers, the majority contained either two or three drugs, but one-fifth contained only one drug. The median (range) volume of the infusions was 15 (9.5-48) mL, and duration of infusion was generally 24 hours. Only one combination was reported as visually incompatible, and there were 13 site reactions (4% of total). Laboratory physical and chemical compatibility data are available for less than half of the most frequently used combinations.
authors.affiliation: University of Nottingham, Nottingham, UK. andrew.wilcock@nottingham.ac.uk
authors.forename: Andrew
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Wilcock
authors.forename: Jayin K
authors.initials: JK
authors.lastname: Jacob
authors.forename: Sarah
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Charlesworth
authors.forename: Elayne
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Harris
authors.forename: Margaret
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Gibbs
authors.forename: Helen
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Allsop
mesh_terms: D004358:Drug Therapy / Q000379:methods; D019538:Health Care Surveys; D006801:Humans; D007260:Infusion Pumps / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D007279:Injections, Subcutaneous / Q000295:instrumentation* / Q000379:methods; D010166:Palliative Care / Q000379:methods*; D004364:Pharmaceutical Preparations / Q000008:administration & dosage*; D013594:Syringes; D006113:United Kingdom / Q000453:epidemiology
chemical_list: D004364:Pharmaceutical Preparations