Enhancing Personal Protection in Dealing With Nurses’ Alarm Fatigue: A Prescriptive Model

Introduction: Psychological stress from managing frequent alarms contributes to fatigue among nurses in intensive care units (ICUs), a condition known as “alarm fatigue.” Neglecting and inappropriately managing alarm fatigue can cause irreversible consequences for nurses and patients. Objective: To understand how to improve nurses’ contextual exposure to alarm fatigue and its consequences. Method and Results: Using existing theories and concepts based on the Walker and Avant method for theory synthesis, a descriptive theory of “trying to create a holistic balance” for improving nurses’ exposure to alarm fatigue was developed. The main and central concept of this prescriptive model was “enhancing the personal protection” of nurses. Improving personal protection to optimize nurses’ exposure to alarm fatigue was carried out through individual optimization, organizational optimization, and evaluation and feedback. Conclusion: Nurses and nurse managers are responsible for providing an optimal individual platform and an optimal organizational platform to help remove contextual obstacles intensifying nurses’ exposure to alarm fatigue in ICUs. Efficient strategies for personal protection help manage and moderate alarm fatigue among nurses, so that a comprehensive, effective, scientific, and ethical balance in ICUs can be achieved.