Sammanfattning
BACKGROUND: International and national guidelines for treatment of sepsis are available. In addition, nearly all Norwegian hospitals have prepared their own guidelines for treatment of this condition. The objective of this study was to assess the degree of consistency between local and national guidelines.
MATERIAL AND METHOD: All state-owned Norwegian hospitals with an emergency internal medicine ward were contacted and questioned about their local guidelines for treatment of sepsis. These local guidelines were compared to the national guidelines.
RESULTS: Altogether 43 out of 48 hospitals responded to the request. Thirty-six hospitals had local guidelines, ten of which had guidelines that had been prepared in a larger hospital. Seven hospitals reported to use the national or international guidelines directly, four of which stated that their own local guidelines were outdated or undergoing revision. The local guidelines were largely consistent with the national ones, although some had minor discrepancies in terms of antibiotics treatment, fluid therapy, vasoactive drugs and inotropic drugs.
INTERPRETATION: The majority of the Norwegian hospitals had local guidelines for treatment of sepsis. These local guidelines were largely consistent with the national ones, although there were differences and disagreements associated with certain aspects of the treatment.