How long do patients spend weaning from CPAP in critical care?

Summary 

The purpose of this project was to audit clinical practice and to investigate the time taken to wean patients using continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) as a method of respiratory support prior to the introduction of a weaning protocol.

Data was collected over a two-month period and 43 patients were included in the audit. Criteria for inclusion were that each patient had previously received mechanical ventilation and was subsequently weaned with the aid of CPAP or had received CPAP and was weaning from CPAP alone.

The average time taken to wean was 95 hours (3.96 days) and ranged from one to 41 days. There was no correlation between the length of weaning time and the patient's APACHE II Score or the length of time spent on invasive ventilation prior to weaning on CPAP. However, there was a consistency in the time spent on CPAP as a percentage of the total weaning time.

The audit identified large variations in the process and time taken to wean patients from CPAP. This might suggest that CPAP is used in a routine or arbitrary manner rather than a selective response to patients’ specific needs.

Keywords: Continuous positive airway pressure, Weaning, Ventilation