Intensive care medicine
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Intensive care medicine · Sep 2011
Perceived stress and team performance during a simulated resuscitation.
Barriers to optimal performance of cardiopulmonary resuscitation may partly relate to human factors, such as stress and specific emotions. The aim of this study was to investigate whether mental stress and different perceived emotions have a negative impact on the performance of rescuers. ⋯ A simulated cardiac arrest caused substantial perceived stress/overload and negative emotions, particularly in female students, which adversely impacted resuscitation performance. Further studies are required to expand our findings to more experienced medical professionals and investigate whether stress coping strategies improve resuscitation performance.
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Intensive care medicine · Sep 2011
Comparative StudyUncertainties in the measurement of blood glucose in paediatric intensive care: implications for clinical trials of tight glycaemic control.
In preparation for a tight glycaemic control (TGC) clinical trial we assessed the agreement between methods used to measure blood glucose in critically ill children. ⋯ Discrepancies between measurements may mask hypoglycaemia, and the potential benefits of controlling hyperglycaemia may not be achieved. Variation introduced by different devices, sample or source may have led to misclassification of treatment decisions contributing to the conflicting results of TGC studies.