rched by this study was the reliability of placement of enteral tubes in children. The researchers reviewed previous work in the field and used that as a guide to their own investigation. However, some of the research in the field was done in adults, and so there was somewhat of an element of guesswork in adapting it to children, for instance in the physiological measures taken they assumed that the results used in adults would be appropriate to use for children (pH levels, bilirubin levels, CO2 levels).
The objectives of the study are clear, specific, testable but are not entirely consistent with the title and purpose of the study, which rather suggests the paper is going to be a description of a method for gastric tube placement rather than one of investigating whether the tube has been placed correctly or not. The literature review is quite relevant to what they actually did, rather than the title of the article. However, most of it pertains to studies carried out in adults while this study was carried out in children. It may be that there were not sufficient studies done previously in children, or that the researchers did not do a thorough search of the literature and did not look hard enough for studies in children. Either way, this has to be borne in and when analyzing the results.
The researchers covered very little in the literature review, focusing mainly on the use of the nose-ear-xiphoid (NEX) distance to calculate tube insertion distance and the method of auscultation of insufflated air to determine the internal location of the tube once inserted, which they say is the most commonly used method. The present study is designed to develop new methods of detecting whether enteral tubes have been correctly placed or not. It was used to test tubes already in place to see if any of them were incorrectly placed.
The idea was to come up with better tests than auscultation of insufflated air to test for placeme...