Drug Extravasation in a Large General Hospital in Hunan, China: A Retrospective Survey

BACKGROUND AND AIM: Drug extravasation is one of the most common complications of intravenous therapy, which can lead to severe tissue injury if inappropriately treated. This study analyzes the current situation of extravasation and the risk factors affecting the severity of extravasation to provide a theoretical basis for carrying out prospective research, reducing the severity of drug extravasation, and strengthening the management of drug extravasation. MATERIALS AND METHODS: We retrieved the data on extravasation from January 2016 to December 2020 from the hospital’s safe infusion management system. We used nonparametric tests to assess the differences in the severity of drug extravasation among each variable and performed a multivariate analysis using multivariate ordered logistic regression. RESULTS: Extravasation occurred in 0.038% (263/694,043) of patients, including 203 cases of mild extravasation (77.2%), 57 cases of moderate extravasation (21.7%), and 3 cases of severe extravasation (1.1%). The main diseases of the patients with extravasation were cancer (24.7%), neurological-related diseases (19.4%), circulatory-related diseases (14.8%), and digestive-related diseases (14.1%); the main extravasated drugs were hypotonic or hypertonic drugs (31.9%) and contrast media (27.8%); the infusion tools of extravasation were indwelling needles (92.0%) and steel needles (8.0%). The multi-factor analysis showed that close to joints, patients’ age ≤6 or age >65, cancer, neurological-related diseases, circulatory-related diseases, antineoplastic agents, hypotonic or hypertonic drugs and strong acid or alkali drugs were independent risk factors for more severe extravasation. The nurses’ age and first identified by nurse were nurse-related factors that influenced the severity of drug extravasation. CONCLUSION: To prevent the occurrence of drug extravasation and reduce its severity, the nurses should strengthen the learning of emergency plans related drug extravasation, strengthen inspections of high-risk patients. Besides, the managers should strengthen the risk warning management of high-risk extravasated drugs.