Are you asking the right admission questions when assessing dyspnea?

BACKGROUND: Dyspnea is an important admission parameter to detect undiagnosed cardiopulmonary conditions. The typical admission question, "Are you short of breath?" can give insufficient or misleading data. OBJECTIVES: A group of clinical research nurses sought to improve dyspnea assessments by using a more accurate measure that would not unduly lengthen the admission process itself. The methodology used to achieve this outcome was research utilization. METHODS: On admission, 103 patients were given the standard question "Are you short of breath?" followed by 4 Visual Analog Scales of Dyspnea (VASD). These response measures assess the degree of dyspnea in relationship to variable exertion activities on a scale of 0 to 10. All responses to VASD were analyzed using descriptive statistics. RESULTS: The results showed that 30% of patients who responded "No" to the shortness of breath query scored 5 or more for dyspnea on the VASD. All scores of 5 or more were reported to the primary care provider for further workup. CONCLUSION: The results from this project gave impetus to designing a more formal research study that could validate VASD use in clinical admission assessments.