Can emergency personnel accurately estimate adult patient weights?

Abstract

Study objectives: Emergency personnel use many medications that are dosed according to patient weight. It has previously been reported that emergency department (ED) personnel are remarkably inaccurate at estimating pediatric weights, but there are few data on the ability of emergency physicians, emergency nurses, and emergency medical services (EMS) personnel to estimate the weight of adults. The purpose of this prospective clinical study is to assess the relative accuracy of these practitioners' weight estimates, as well as the accuracy of the self-reported patient weight. Methods: This study enrolled a convenience sample of 100 adult patients presenting to our active community teaching hospital ED. The patient, emergency physician, ED nurse, and EMS personnel were all asked to estimate the patient's weight, and then the patient was weighed. All estimates and weights were recorded contemporaneously, and each estimator was blinded to all the other estimates. Results: If an accurate estimate was defined as being within 20% of the patient's actual weight, all participants did similarly well. Ninety-four percent of EMS estimates, 88% of ED nurse estimates, 89% of emergency physician estimates were correct ( P >.5), as were 100% of patients themselves. With accuracy more strictly defined as being correct within 10% of actual weight, all classes of emergency personnel were correct only 48% to 58% of the time, although patients were still almost perfectly accurate (96% P Conclusion: Emergency medical personnel reliably estimate adult weights within 20% of actual weight; they are accurate within 10% only half the time. Patient estimates of their own weight are very accurate.