More needles less pain: The use of local anaesthesia during emergency arterial sampling

ObjectiveTo explore the attitudes toward the use of local anesthetic (LA) in arterial blood gas sampling and the awareness and adherence to British Thoracic Society guidelines.MethodsAn anonymous eight-item survey was distributed among medical professionals in two teaching and two district general hospitals.ResultsIn total 153 medical professionals were surveyed. Sixty-five percent have never had any training in administering LA. Most thought that arterial blood gas sampling was either “quite painful” (61%) or “extremely painful” (20%). However, 58% believed that patients should only “sometimes” be offered LA. Over half of the respondents (56%) never used LA before arterial blood gas sampling and 34% only used it “sometimes”. The majority (53%) stated that they would “sometimes” use LA in the future and 23% said that they would never use it.ConclusionsOur results demonstrated that British Thoracic Society guidelines are not followed across the four hospitals. Despite the acknowledgment of arterial sampling being a painful procedure and the belief that patients should be offered LA at least “sometimes”, over half of the respondents never use it. Addressing the above-mentioned issues by introducing local guidelines and teaching sessions, as well as making LA more available, will help make this practice routine.