Early warning scoring systems versus standard observations charts for wards in South Africa: a cluster randomized controlled trial

Table 4 Nurses’ responses to disturbed physiology (MEW score 1 to 3) ^a : numbers of patients that should have triggered and did trigger responses in their first eight postoperative hours

	Intervention arm n = 50 patients			Control arm n = 55 patients
Parameter and MEW scores	Number of MEWS trigger points	Response to number of patients		Number of MEWS trigger points	Response to number of patients
Parameter and MEW scores		Yes (%)	No (%)		Yes (%)	No (%)
Respiratory rate MEWS
1	15	0	15 (100)	0	0	0
2	6	0	6 (100)	0	0	0
3	0	0	0	0	0	0
Total	21	0	21 (100)	0	0	0
Heart rate MEWS
1	11	0	11 (100)	13	0	13 (100)
2	7	1 (14.3)	6 (85.7)	6	0	6 (100)
3	1	0	1 (100)	0	0	0
Total	19	1 (5.3)	18 (94.7)	19	0	19 (100)
Oxygen saturation MEWS
1	0	0	0	1	0	1 (100)
2	1	0	1 (100)	0	0	0
3	0	0	0	0	0	0
Total	1	0	1 (100)	1	0	1 (100)
Systolic blood pressure MEWS
1	11	1 (9.1)	10 (90.9)	20	0	20 (100)
2	7	0	7 (100)	4	0	4 (100)
3	7	2 (28.6)	5 (71.4)	3	1 (33.3)	2 (66.7)
Total	25	3 (12.0)	22 (88.0)	27	1 (3.7)	26 (96.3)
Temperature MEWS
1	22	2 (9.1)	20 (90.9)	18	0	18 (100)
2	7	0	7 (100)	4	0	4 (100)
3	0	0	0	1	0	1 (100
Total	29	2 (6.9)	27 (93.1)	23	0	23 (100)
Level of consciousness MEWS
1	9	0	9 (100)	7	0	7 (100)
2	0	0	0	0	0	0
3	0	0	0	0	0	0
Total	9	0	9 (100)	7	0	7 (100)
Urine output MEWS
1	11	0	11 (100)	5	0	5 (100)
2	6	0	6 (100)	4	0	4 (100)
3	7	1 (14.3)	6 (85.7)	7	1 (14.3)	6 (85.7)
Total	24	1 (4.2)	23 (95.8)	16	1 (6.3)	15 (93.7)
Overall total, primary outcome	128	7 (5.5)	121 (94.5)	93	2 (2.2)	91 (97.8)

Intention-to-treat analysis.
^aNo distinction is made between lower and upper modified early warning score (MEWS) trigger points.
0 indicates no recordings.
Excluding level of consciousness and urine output, which should be interpreted with caution, 46 patients (80.7%) in the intervention arm (n = 57) had one to three parameters with abnormal MEWS: 19 (33.3%) patients had one abnormal parameter; 17 (29.8%) had two abnormal parameters (including the three patients who died); and 10 (17.5%) had three abnormal parameters. Two (3.5%) patients had four abnormal parameters. Nine (15.8%) patients in the intervention arm had no abnormal parameters.
In the control arm (n = 57), 45 (78.9%) patients had one to three parameters with abnormal MEWS: 26 (45.6%) patients had one abnormal parameter; 13 (22.8%) had two abnormal parameters; and six (10.5%) had three abnormal parameters. Twelve (21.0%) patients in the control arm had no abnormal parameters.

ISSN: 1745-6215