Detecting Awareness in Children by Using an Auditory Intervention

Abstract

The incidence of awareness in this study is less than reported previously.

Awareness in children: a secondary analysis of five cohort studies

“…Paediatric data are less complete. Five recent cohort studies have reported the incidence of awareness in children to be between 0.2% and 1.2% [13][14][15][16][17], considerably higher than the reported incidence in adults. It is unknown why the incidence is higher in children.…”

“…recall of intraoperative events. In the respective papers these groups were called 'true awareness' [13], 'confirmed awareness' [14], 'awareness' [15], 'true awareness' [16] and 'possible ⁄ probable awareness' [17]. De-identified datasets of standardised variables from all five studies were then combined into a single large dataset.…”

“…The ASA classification was recorded for all studies except the second Australian study [15], whereas use of a tracheal tube was recorded for all studies except the first Australian study [13]. Use of regional nerve blockade was only available for the Swiss, Dutch and second Australian studies [14][15][16].…”

“…Where needed, there was exemption or approval (and waiver of consent) from the relevant institutional review boards or ethics committees for the transfer of data for this analysis. Two of the studies were conducted at Royal Children's Hospital, Melbourne, Australia [13,15]; one was at University Hospitals, Geneva, Switzerland [14]; another was at Sophia Children's Hospital, Rotterdam, The Netherlands [16]; and another was a multicentre study in the USA (conducted at Emory University, Atlanta, University of Colorado, Denver, and University of Michigan Health Systems, Ann Arbor, Michigan) [17]. All the original cohort studies were designed to determine the incidence of awareness in children, where awareness was defined as the free recall of events that occurred during general anaesthesia.…”

“…Raw unidentifiable data from five independently conducted cohort studies were combined [13][14][15][16][17]. The original studies were conducted with the approval of local institutional review boards or ethics committees and children were enrolled after informed consent from their parents.…”