Table 5

Nurse-reported alarm burden by hospital characteristics

% and N of nurses who frequently or occasionally…
Feel overwhelmed by the number of alarms
N=3262
Delay response to alarms because can’t step away from another patient/task
N=2970
Encounter situations where a patient needs urgent attention, but no one responds to alarm
N=2164
Have work interrupted or delayed by false, non-actionable or non-urgent alarms
N=1793
%N*P†%N*P†%N*P†%N*P†
Work environment
 Good79.85750.00171.55140.00142.1299<0.00139.6281<0.001
 Mixed84.7192275.4170555.4125045.41019
 Poor80.976579.275165.461552.3493
Proportion of nurses reporting not enough staff to get work done
 0%–33%80.811460.00870.3995<0.00145.0631<0.00142.75960.001
 34%–66%82.9119177.1110557.982846.3660
 67%–100%85.692580.687065.670550.0537
Teaching status
 Nonteaching84.011760.02477.71086<0.00156.4784<0.00146.86500.017
 Minor84.486077.979461.162049.0494
 Major80.8122672.1109050.676043.4649
Size
 Small (≤100 beds)69.2360.02573.1380.05744.2230.00853.9280.096
 Medium (101–250 beds)83.959479.255960.242549.2344
 Large (>250 beds)83.0260675.0234954.7170445.41409
  • *May not sum to total due to missing.

  • †P-value for χ2 test.