responses from nurses and midwives

responses from nurses and midwives working in regional
and rural settings (35% and 17% respectively), as well as
across a range of patient populations including paediatric
and neonatal (7% and 2% respectively). Respondents had a
range of experience but were represented evenly, with 50%
of respondents having worked in their clinical domain for
more than six years.
3.1. Flushing practice
Data revealed that sodium chloride 0.9% was the most
frequent solution used for flushing for both peripheral
catheters (96%) and central catheters (75%) devices. Some
form of Heparin was used by 25% of respondents in the
central venous catheter group. The majority of respon-
dents (approximately 60%) reported 10 mL as the most
common volume used to flush both peripheral and central
venous catheter, with 5 mL being the next most common
amount. Most respondents used a 10 mL size syringe to
administer flushes to peripheral catheters (75%) and
central catheters (82%). Of respondents using syringes of
less than 10 mL volume, there was a higher incidence (23%)
in the peripheral catheter group than the central catheter
group (8%). Cross tabulation and correlation analysis
revealed that clinicians from a paediatric/neonatal setting
were more likely to use a smaller syringe (i.e. 2 mL or 5 mL)
to administer a peripheral intravenous catheter flush than
those working in an adult setting (52% and 89% respec-
tively, p < 0.0001). Responses on frequency of flushing
were wide and varied, with the most commonly reported
timings being pre- and post-drug administration only
(Peripheral 23% and Central 21%), and pre- and post-drug
plus 6 hourly administration (Peripheral 23% and Central
22%). Full details of all responses are in Table 2.
Most nurses and midwives reported being aware of an
institutional flushing policy related to peripheral and
central venous catheters (72% and 80% respectively). The
vast majority of respondents manually prepared flushes
for administration, with only a small percentage using
prefilled syringes (Peripheral 10% and Central 11%). It is
unknown whether these respondents were referring to
commercially available, sterile pre-filled flush syringes, or
to manually pre-filled syringes by themselves or another
practitioner in their institution. Less than half of the
respondents in both groups reported that a medical order
was required for flushing. Chi square testing revealed that
nurses from a paediatric or neonatal setting were more
likely to have an order for flushing and to document
administration of flush, compared with practices in adult
settings (Peripheral 89% and 82% respectively, p < 0.001,