Lung sliding detection by nurses: impact of a short focused theoretical training

Background: Lung ultrasound significantly improves the differential diagnosis of acute respiratory failure and in particular allows ruling in or out pneumothorax by the analysis of lung sliding with high accuracy[1]. Nurses frequently assess patients with respiratory distress independently; this happens in case of trauma patients assisted by nurse-only emergency teams in pre-hospital field. So far nurses only used auscultation but may improve their assessment accuracy using ultrasound, after having received a proper training [2]. Aims and Objectives: to test the possibility to improve lung sliding interpretation by nurses with a short focused theoretical training. Methods: Interpretation of a slot of 25 clips (presence of lung sliding, lung pulse, lung point or no pleural movement) before and after a 3-hour focused training for nurses attending a first level university master in critical care. Results: 22 nurse trainees were involved (males 4, age 26.0 [24.0-28.0] year-old, previous ultrasound training 1, previous lung ultrasound training 0). From before to after the training, the median number of correct answers changed from 0.5 [0.0-2.0] to 8.5 [6.0-12.0] (p Conclusions: A short theoretical training significantly improved lung sliding interpretation by nurses; however, the percentage of exact answers after the training remained too low to allow clinical use, suggesting a longer training may be useful. The study only focused on image interpretation; the training required for image acquisition was not tested. References: 1. Laursen CB et al. Lancet Respir Med 2014;2:638-46; 2. Noble VE et al. BMC Medical Education 2009;9:3