Flushing Peripheral Intravenous Catheters – What Do We Really Know?

Study Overview:
Peripheral intravenous catheter (PIVC) flushing is a common nursing practice aimed at preventing occlusion and ensuring line patency. However, there’s no consistent, evidence-based standard guiding how flushing should be performed.

Why This Matters:
Flushing is essential for maintaining catheter patency, reducing infection risk, and preventing complications like occlusion and thrombophlebitis. However, despite its widespread use, significant variation exists in clinical practice regarding flush solutions, techniques, volumes, and frequency.

Key Findings:

• The review included 43 studies spanning various countries and settings.
• Sodium chloride 0.9% remains the most common flush solution, but evidence around volume, frequency, and pressure varies widely.
• Few studies addressed flushing technique, such as pulsatile vs continuous methods.
• There is limited research on flush effectiveness related to catheter outcomes like dwell time or complication rates.
• The authors identified a lack of standardized protocols and an urgent need for well-designed clinical trials to inform guidelines.

Conclusion:
While flushing is considered a fundamental nursing skill, this review highlights how under-researched it remains. The authors call for high-quality studies to better understand the impact of flushing variables on patient outcomes and to support evidence-based standardisation.

Read more:https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0330125 

Authors: Jiaxin Deng, Orlaith Hernon, Caitríona Duggan, Leo R. Quinlan, Zina Alfahl, and Peter J. Carr