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Introduction: Cardiovascular monitoring alarms are frequent in intensive care units (ICUs) and lead to noise levels often exceeding 80 dB. The aim of this study was to evaluate if there are relevant differences between ICUs with different subspecialties in the frequency and distribution of alarm signals, their occurrence during the day, the types of alarms and the underlying vital parameters.Methods: All alarm signals of the cardiovascular monitoring systems from randomly chosen patients at five different ICUs of the university hospital of Regensburg were evaluated.Results: No significant differences between the ICUs regarding the frequency of alarm signals and only slight differences in the time distribution could be recognized (p=0.02). The most frequent alarm signals were from threshold alarms (61%) followed by technical alarms. The majority of alarms generated were related to invasive arterial blood pressure measurement.Conclusions: The frequency and distribution of ICU alarm signals seem to be comparable on different ICUs. Therefore, implementation of universal concepts for alarm reduction seems to be applicable regardless of the subspecialty of the ICU. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]