Evaluation of pulse-oximetry oxygen saturation taken through skin protective covering.docVIP

BMC Pediatrics BioMedCentral Research article Open Access Evaluation of pulse-oximetry oxygen saturation taken through skin protective covering Jyotsna James1, Lokesh Tiwari1, Pramod Upadhyay2, Vishnubhatla Sreenivas3, Vikas Bhambhani1 and Jacob M Puliyel*1 Address: 1St Stephens Hospital Tis Hazari, Delhi 110054, India, 2Centre for Science Education and Communication, University of Delhi, India and 3Department of Bio-statistics All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi, India Email: Jyotsna James - jyotsnajames@; Lokesh Tiwari - lokeshdoc@; Pramod Upadhyay - pkumar@nii.res.in; Vishnubhatla Sreenivas - sreenivas_vishnu@; Vikas Bhambhani - vikasbhambhani@; Jacob M Puliyel* - puliyel@ * Corresponding author Published: 06 May 2006 Received: 13 September 2005 Accepted: 06 May 2006 BMC Pediatrics 2006, 6:14 doi:10.1186/1471-2431-6-14 This article is available from: /1471-2431/6/14 ? 2006 James et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Abstract Background: The hard edges of adult finger clip probes of the pulse oximetry oxygen saturation (POOS) monitor can cause skin damage if used for prolonged periods in a neonate. Covering the skin under the probe with Micropore surgical tape or a gauze piece might prevent such injury. The study was done to see if the protective covering would affect the accuracy of the readings. Methods: POOS was studied in 50 full-term neonates in the first week of life. After obtaining consent from their parents the neonates had POOS readings taken directly (standard technique) and through the protective covering. Bland-Altman plots were used to compare the new method with the standard technique. A test of repeatability for each method was also performed. Result