Tag Archives: Evidence-Based Practice

Survey of Sedation and Analgesia Practice Among Canadian Pediatric Critical Care Physicians. (Duke)

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Garcia Guerra G, et al. Survey of Sedation and Analgesia Practice Among Canadian Pediatric Critical Care Physicians. Pediatr Crit Care Med. 2016 Sep;17(9):823-30.

BACKGROUND: Despite the fact that almost all critically ill children experience some degree of pain or anxiety, there is a lack of high-quality evidence to inform preferred approaches to sedation, analgesia, and comfort measures in this environment. We conducted this survey to better understand current comfort and sedation practices among Canadian pediatric intensivists.

METHODS: The survey was conducted after a literature review and initial focus groups. The survey was then pretested and validated. The final survey was distributed by email to 134 intensivists from 17 PICUs across Canada using the Research Electronic Data Capture system.

RESULTS: The response rate was 73% (98/134). The most commonly used sedation scores are Face, Legs, Activity, Cry, and Consolability (42%) and COMFORT (41%). Withdrawal scores are commonly used (65%). In contrast, delirium scores are used by only 16% of the respondents. Only 36% of respondents have routinely used sedation protocols. The majority (66%) do not use noise reduction methods, whereas only 23% of respondents have a protocol to promote day/night cycles. Comfort measures including music, swaddling, soother, television, and sucrose solutions are frequently used. The drugs most commonly used to provide analgesia are morphine and acetaminophen. Midazolam and chloral hydrate were the most frequent sedatives.

CONCLUSION: Our survey demonstrates great variation in practice in the management of pain and anxiety in Canadian PICUs. Standardized strategies for sedation, delirium and withdrawal, and sleep promotion are lacking. There is a need for research in this field and the development of evidence-based, pediatric sedation and analgesia guidelines.

A systematic review of evidence-informed practices for patient care rounds in the ICU. (Ruth)

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Crit Care Med. 2013 Aug;41(8):2015-29. PMID: 23666096

OBJECTIVES: Patient care rounds are a key mechanism by which healthcare providers communicate and make patient care decisions in the ICU but no synthesis of best practices for rounds currently exists. Therefore, we systematically reviewed the evidence for facilitators and barriers to patient care rounds in the ICU.

DATA SOURCES: Search of Medline, Embase, CINAHL, PubMed, and the Cochrane library through September 21, 2012.

STUDY SELECTION: Original, peer-reviewed research studies (no methodological restrictions) were selected, which described current practices, facilitators, or barriers to healthcare provider rounding in the ICU.

DATA EXTRACTION: Two authors with methodological and content expertise independently abstracted data using a prespecified abstraction tool.

DATA SYNTHESIS: The literature search identified 7,373 citations. Reviews of abstracts led to the retrieval of 136 full text articles for assessment; 43 articles in three languages (English, German, Spanish) were selected for review. Of these, 13 were ethnographic studies and 15 uncontrolled before-after studies. Six studies used control groups, including one cross-over randomized, one time-series, three cohort, and one controlled before-after study. A total of 13 facilitators and 9 barriers to patient care rounds were identified through a narrative and meta-synthesis of included studies. Identified facilitators suggest that the quality of rounds is improved when conducted by a multidisciplinary group of providers, with explicitly defined roles, using a standardized structure and goal-oriented approach that includes a best practices checklist. Barriers to quality patient care rounds include poor information retrieval and documentation, interruptions, long rounding times, and allied healthcare provider perceptions of not being valued by rounding physicians.

CONCLUSIONS: Although the evidence base for best practices of patient care rounds in the ICU is limited, several practical and low-risk practices can be considered for implementation.

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