title: Trends in the practice of parental presence during induction of anesthesia and the use of preoperative sedative premedication in the United States, 1995-2002: results of a follow-up national survey.
abstract: Both parental presence during induction of anesthesia and sedative premedication are currently used to treat preoperative anxiety in children. A survey study conducted in 1995 demonstrated that most children are taken into the operating room without the benefit of either of these two interventions. In 2002 we conducted a follow-up survey study. Five thousand questionnaires were mailed to randomly selected physician members of the American Society of Anesthesiologists. Mailings were followed by a nonresponse bias assessment. Twenty-seven percent (n = 1362) returned the questionnaire after 3 mailings. We found that a significantly larger proportion of young children undergoing surgery in the United States were reported to receive sedative premedication in 2002 as compared with 1995 (50% vs 30%, P = 0.001). We also found that in 2002 there was significantly less geographical variability in the use of sedative premedication as compared with the 1995 survey (F = 8.31, P = 0.006). Similarly, we found that in 2002 parents of children undergoing surgery in the United States were allowed to be present more often during induction of anesthesia as compared with 1995 (chi(2) = 26.3, P = 0.0001). Finally, similar to our findings in the 1995 survey, midazolam was uniformly selected most often to premedicate patients before surgery.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Over the past 7 yr there have been significant increases in the number of anesthesiologists who use preoperative sedative premedication and parental presence for children undergoing surgery.
authors.affiliation: Department of Anesthesiology, Yale University School of Medicine, New Haven, Connecticut 06510, USA. kain@biomed.med.yale.edu
authors.forename: Zeev N
authors.initials: ZN
authors.lastname: Kain
authors.forename: Alison A
authors.initials: AA
authors.lastname: Caldwell-Andrews
authors.forename: Dawn M
authors.initials: DM
authors.lastname: Krivutza
authors.forename: Megan E
authors.initials: ME
authors.lastname: Weinberg
authors.forename: Shu-Ming
authors.initials: SM
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.forename: Dorothy
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Gaal
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000758:Anesthesia / Q000523:psychology*; D015982:Bias; D002648:Child; D003625:Data Collection; D004363:Drug Utilization; D005260:Female; D005500:Follow-Up Studies; D006279:Health Maintenance Organizations; D006801:Humans; D006993:Hypnotics and Sedatives; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D016134:Organizational Policy; D010290:Parents / Q000523:psychology*; D011229:Preanesthetic Medication / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D014481:United States
chemical_list: D006993:Hypnotics and Sedatives