Authors
Fabrice Vultaggio
Published in
International emergency nursing. Volume 89. Pages 101921. Oct 26, 2026. Epub Oct 26, 2026.
Abstract
Indwelling urinary catheterization is a common invasive procedure performed in emergency departments (EDs), yet inappropriateness rates in this setting generally exceed those observed in medical and surgical wards, ranging from 26% to 72% in published series. Inappropriate catheterization contributes to a substantial burden of potentially preventable catheter-associated urinary tract infections and non-infectious complications.
This narrative review examines the epidemiology of urinary catheter misuse in EDs, recalls the clinical indications defined by reference guidelines, and discusses the role of interventions and bladder ultrasound, performed with automated scanners or point-of-care ultrasound (POCUS), in catheterization decision-making.
A structured literature search was conducted in PubMed/MEDLINE, Embase, CINAHL, and the Cochrane Library, supplemented by hand-searching of reference lists and inclusion of key guidelines regardless of publication date.
Interventions combining education with decision-support tools have been associated with less inappropriate catheterization. Bladder ultrasound, while valuable for confirming functionally suspected retention, may promote volume-based catheterization decisions at the expense of functional clinical reasoning, a mechanism not yet formally evaluated in ED-specific studies and identified as a research priority.
PMID:
42933191
Bibliographic data and abstract were imported from PubMed on 27 Oct 2026.
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