Abstract
We sent a questionnaire to 165 institutions, i.e., 73 university hospitals and 92 ENT practitioners, in Japan to assess nebulizer ease of use and maintenance in preventing contamination.
The questionnaire asked whether an institation used nebulizers, the nebulizer model and manufacturer, precautions for proper use, and regular maintenance points and improvements physicians wanted.
Result showed that at university hospitals, nebulizer treatment was used at 56 (76.6%) but not 17 institutions (23.3%). ENT practitioners used nebulizers at all 92 clinics.
By model, 39 university hospitals use jet nebulizers, 8 ultrasonic nebulizers and 9 both.
Among the 92 ENT practitioners, 56 use only jet, 7 only ultrasonic, and 29 both.
Among respondents, 41 university hospitals (73.2%) and 69 ENT practitioners (75%) conducted regular maintenance. Many hospitals use maintenance service provided by nebulizer manufacturers.
Precautions taken by both groups are similar and ideas for improvements common. Main care issues are nebulizer disinfection, agent contamination, infection risk, drug allergy and ventilation of the clinical environment. Improvements requested included de-velopment of easy-to-disinfect design, compact lightweight units, and reduction in motor noise.
