What Did We Learn from Post-Anesthetic Assessment for Elective Pediatric Surgery in a Consultation Clinic?

Abstract

  We reviewed the post-anesthetic consultation notes of 812 elective pediatric surgical patients, who were under 12 years of age, seen at the Nara Medical University Hospital from 1999 to 2003 to investigate what the perioperative problems were for them and to evaluate the efficacy of a pediatric pre-anesthetic consultation clinic. Although 2.3% of patients were dissatisfied with anesthetic care, 60.8% were satisfied. 32% of them complained of unpleasant experiences including drip/injection, postoperative pain, premedication, urethral catheterization, or postoperative nausea/vomiting. After determination of the date of the surgery, having the anesthetic assessment again in the anesthetic consultation clinic before hospitalization, reduced the rating of dissatisfaction with anesthesia and postponement of surgery after hospitalization. In elective pediatric surgery, it is necessary for anesthetic consultations to provide information about safe anesthetic management and these expected perioperative anesthesia-related problems. Increase in opportunity for having the anesthetic consultation was effective to help families better understand anesthesia.