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doi:10.1093/bja/aen315
PAEDIATRICS
Intraoperative awareness during paediatric anaesthesia
H. J. Blusse van Oud-Alblas1 2*, M. van Dijk2, C. Liu1, D. Tibboel2, J. Klein1 and F. Weber1
1
Results. The interviews generated 26 cases of suspected awareness. Six cases were judged to
be true awareness, equalling a 0.6% incidence (95% confidence interval 0.03 1.40%). Auditory
and sensory perceptions were the sensations most reported by these six children. Pain,
anxiety, and paralysis were less often mentioned. The children in general did not report awareness as stressful.
Conclusions. The incidence of awareness in this study, in children undergoing general anaesthesia, is comparable with recent reports from other countries, and appears to be higher than
that reported in adults.
Br J Anaesth 2009; 102: 10410
Keywords: anaesthesia, paediatric; complications; psychological responses, postoperative
Accepted for publication: October 2, 2008
Methods
After approval from the institutional review board
(Erasmus University Medical Centre, Rotterdam, The
Netherlands), and written informed parental consent,
children were enrolled in the study between May 2006
and May 2007. Inclusion criteria were age 5 18 yr and
receiving general anaesthesia for elective or emergency
procedures. Exclusion criteria were visual or hearing
impairments, not being able to communicate in Dutch,
cognitive impairment, expected ventilation after operation,
out-of-hours emergency procedure, or additional neurophysiologic monitoring of depth of anaesthesia. Children
# The Board of Management and Trustees of the British Journal of Anaesthesia 2008. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org
Methods. Data from 928 consecutive paediatric patients, aged 5 18 yr, were collected prospectively over a 12 month period. Interviews using a structured questionnaire were scheduled
at three time points: within 24 h after the operation, and 3 7 and 30 days after operation.
Reports of suspected awareness were sent to four independent adjudicators. If they all agreed,
the case was classified as a true awareness case.
Interview
The questionnaire consisted of hierarchically organized
questions. The first questions were open-ended, nonleading questions about events in the induction room and
last memories before falling asleep. If a child could not
respond to an open question, it was asked a concrete question. For example, Who was with you before you fell
asleep?, Did the doctor put something on your arm or
face to put you to sleep?, and What did the doctor put on
your arm or face?. The next questions were on first memories after surgery. Again, concrete questions were asked
if the child could not respond to an open question. For
example, Where did you wake up after surgery?, Were
you alone or was someone with you when you woke up,
and Who was with you when you woke up?. Finally,
direct questions were asked on recall of events during the
operation.
If the child replied yes to Did you feel anything
during the operation, or Did you hear anything during
the operation, (s)he was first asked to describe memories
of the events in more detail. The principal investigator
asked the child the awareness-specific questions originally
Results
One thousand and fifteen children were approached for
participation in the study, of whom 36 (3.5%) refused
informed consent. Fifty-one children (5%) were too sleepy
or nauseous to be interviewed and were secondarily
excluded from the study. The remaining 928 children all
were interviewed after the operation. Seven hundred and
thirty-five (80%) children were interviewed at 3 7 days
and 733 (79%) at 30 days after surgery. The dropout was
caused by failure to reach the children, parents, or both, or
by refusal to be interviewed again. Types of surgical procedures are shown in Table 1.
Table 1 Details of procedures performed under general anaesthesia
Type of procedure
Number of children
229
172
142
100
60
59
48
30
29
24
10
9
16
105
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
Awareness
No. of adjudicators
classifying case as
awareness
Dream and
awareness
Time of recall
First day
1 week
1 month
Sensation
Pain
1
2
True
True
4
4
Yes
No
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
None
Moderate
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
True
True
True
True
Possible
Possible
Possible
Possible
Possible
4
4
4
4
3
2
2
2
2
No
Yes
No
No
Yes
Yes
No
No
No
No
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
No
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
No
Yes
Yes
Yes
No
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
No
Yes
Yes
Yes
No
Tactile
Auditory
Tactile and auditory
Tactile and auditory
Auditory
Tactile
Auditory
Auditory
Tactile
None
None
Severe
None
None
None
None
None
None
12
13
14
Possible
Possible
Possible
1
1
1
Yes
Yes
No
No
Yes
No
Yes
Yes
No
Yes
Yes
Yes
Auditory
Tactile and auditory
Auditory
None
None
None
106
Comment
Told recovery
personnel
Told her
mother
Patient
no.
Table 4 Details of patient characteristics and anaesthesia in true and possible awareness cases
Awareness
Sex
Age
ASA
status
Procedure
Sedative
premedication
Induction
Maintenance
Neuromuscular
blocker
Local
anaesthesia
Other
drugs
True
16
No
Propofol
Isoflurane
Esmeron
No
No
True
II
No
Propofol
Isoflurane
No
No
No
3
4
True
True
M
F
6
8
I
II
No
No
Propofol
Propofol
Propofol
Isoflurane
No
Esmeron
No
No
No
No
True
No
Propofol
Isoflurane
Esmeron
No
No
True
13
No
Propofol
Isoflurane
Mivacron
No
No
7
8
Possible
Possible
M
F
6
7
I
I
No
No
Propofol
Propofol
Propofol
Sevoflurane
No
Mivacron
No
No
No
No
Possible
13
No
Propofol
Isoflurane
No
Yes
Morphine
10
11
Possible
Possible
F
F
6
6
I
I
No
No
Propofol
Propofol
Sevoflurane
Isoflurane
No
No
No
Yes
No
No
12
13
Possible
Possible
M
M
6
6
I
I
No
No
Sevoflurane
Propofol
Sevoflurane
Isoflurane
Mivacron
No
No
Yes
No
No
14
Possible
13
Ear
reconstruction
Bone marrow
punction
MRI
Cardiac
catheterization
Ear
reconstruction
Excision biopt
sacrum
MRI
Adenotomy
and ear tubes
Orthopaedic
surgery
Eye surgery
Abdominal
surgery
Gastroscopy
Abdominal
surgery
Eye surgery
No
Propofol
Isoflurane
Mivacron
No
No
Discussion
Demonstrating a 0.6% incidence of intraoperative awareness in children in our hospital, our study confirms recent
reported incidences from other countries. The incidence in
children appears to be higher than that reported in adults
(0.1 0.2%).1 2 There are several similarities between our
data and recent paediatric studies.4 5 First, the incidences
of awareness are comparable. Secondly, auditory and
tactile sensations were most frequently recalled, more than
pain, anxiety, and paralysis. Thirdly, in general, awareness
was not experienced as stressful. The results from our
study therefore add to the validity of the previously
reported findings. Intraoperative awareness during paediatric anaesthesia appears to be a complication that occurs at
an estimated incidence of around 1%, irrespective of geographic location, institution, or anaesthetic practices.
The estimate of the incidence of awareness in our hospital is relatively conservative, based on cases of true
awareness only. Including the cases of possible awareness
would have raised the incidence to 1.5% (14 out of 928
children). Alternatively, applying the criteria used by
Lopez and colleagues5 (unanimous coding of awareness
107
Case
no.
Our results indicate that children may not report awareness experiences spontaneously, as only one out of six
children later identified as having experienced true
Table 5 Comparative patient characteristics of true awareness and
non-awareness groups. Patients were classified as aware when all four
adjudicators agreed on this. Data are presented as number (%), mean (range)
or mean (SD). ASA, American Society of Anaesthesiologists. *Anaesthetic
data for eight patients in the non-aware group are missing. Patients only
received a single-dose neuromuscular blockers
Variable
Non-aware* (n5922)
2 (33%)
4 (67%)
9.8 (6.1 15.5)
505 (55%)
417 (45%)
11 (5.1 17.9)
4
2
0
6
0
0
6
6
0
0
0
4
3
0
0
1
0
0
834 (90%)
81 (9%)
7 (1%)
919 (99%)
3 (1%)
0
849 (91%)
835 (90%)
70 (0.8%)
7 (0.8%)
71 (7.7%)
401 (44%)
164 (17.7%)
11 (1.2%)
3 (0.3%)
217 (23.4%)
7 (0.8%)
2 (0.2%)
(67%)
(33%)
(100%)
(100%)
(100%)
(67%)
(50%)
(17%)
4 (67%)
2 (33%)
0
455 (49%)
389 (42%)
66 (7%)
1 (17%)
5 (83%)
0
0
97 (11%)
514 (55.4%)
280 (30.2%)
11 (1.2%)
0
0
1
1
0
70 (52)
95 (10.2%)
15 (1.6%)
232 (25%)
171 (18.4%)
37 (4%)
65 (50%)
3 (50%)
3 (50%)
2 (33%)
566 (61%)
362 (39%)
87 (9%)
Patients
Interview
7 14 yr, n202
Within 72 h; 30
days
Hobbs and
colleagues,10 1988
OSullivan,11 1988
Davidson and
colleagues,4 2005
Lopez and
colleagues,5 2007
6 12 yr, n120
Same day
5 14 yr, n144
5 12 yr, n864
Same day
Within 24 h;
3 days; 30 days
Within 36 h; 30
days
6 16 yr, n410
0%
0.8%, if four adjudicators agreed
awareness
1.2%, if at least two adjudicators rated
awareness and one rated possible
awareness
108
Risk factors
Comments
Second interview by parents
Induction room
Multiple airway,
manoeuvres
Sex
Male
Female
Age (yr)
ASA
I
II
III
Elective surgery
Emergency surgery
Sedative premedication
I.V. induction
Propofol
Pentothal
Etomidate
Inhaled induction
Neuromuscular blocker
Esmeron
Nimbex
Norcuron
Mivacron
Tracrium
Suxamethonium
Airway management
Endotracheal intubation
Laryngeal mask airway
Facial mask
Maintenance of anaesthesia
Total i.v. anaesthesia
Isoflurane
Sevoflurane
Midazolam
Analgesia
Caudal block
Epidural
Local anaesthetic
Morphine
Ketamine
Duration of anaesthesia
Admission
Ambulatory ward
In-patients
Dreaming
Aware (n56)
Funding
Financial support was provided solely from departmental
resources.
Appendix
Structured awareness screening interview
Interview on day 1
1
Were you upset, worried, or frightened about your operation?
2
How upset, worried, or frightened were you?
3
What was the last thing you remember before the operation?
4
How did the doctor make you go to sleep?
5
What is the first thing you remember after your operation?
6
After you fell asleep, do you remember anything that happened during
the operation?
7
Did you have any dreams during the operation?
8
Did you feel anything during the operation?
9
Did you hear anything during the operation?
10
Did you have pain after the operation?
11
Did you have an operation before?
12
Did you hear or feel anything during previous operations?
Interview on days 37 and day 30
1
What was the last thing you remember before the operation?
2
How did the doctor make you go to sleep?
3
What is the next thing you remember after your operation?
4
Did you have any dreams during the operation?
5
Did you feel anything during the operation?
6
Did you hear anything during the operation?
Additional questions for suspected awareness cases
1
Did you notice sounds?
2
Did you notice tactile sensations?
3
Did you have visual perceptions?
4
Did you feel pain?
5
Were you paralysed?
6
Did you feel something in your mouth or throat?
7
What went through your mind?
8
Did you believe you were dreaming?
9
How long did it last?
10
Did you try to alert anyone?
11
Did you inform your parents or the doctor?
References
Acknowledgements
We thank all members of the Sophia Anaesthesia Awareness Research
Team for interviewing the patients. We also thank Bieke Bax MD,
Desiree van der Werff MD (University Medical Centre Utrecht), Antonia
Gonzalez-Candel MD (Erasmus MCSophia Childrens Hospital), and
109
110