Burnout and posttraumatic stress in paediatric critical care personnel: Prediction from resilience and coping styles.

INTRODUCTION: Our aims were (1) to explore the prevalence of burnout syndrome (BOS) and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in a sample of Spanish staff working in the paediatric intensive care unit (PICU) and compare these rates with a sample of general paediatric staff and (2) to explore how resilience, coping strategies, and professional and demographic variables influence BOS and PTSD. MATERIALS AND METHODS: This is a multicentre, cross-sectional study. Data were collected in the PICU and in other paediatric wards of nine hospitals. Participants consisted of 298 PICU staff members (57 physicians, 177 nurses, and 64 nursing assistants) and 189 professionals working in non-critical paediatric units (53 physicians, 104 nurses, and 32 nursing assistants). They completed the Brief Resilience Scale, the Coping Strategies Questionnaire for healthcare providers, the Maslach Burnout Inventory, and the Trauma Screening Questionnaire. RESULTS: Fifty-six percent of PICU working staff reported burnout in at least one dimension (36.20% scored over the cut-off for emotional exhaustion, 27.20% for depersonalisation, and 20.10% for low personal accomplishment), and 20.1% reported PTSD. There were no differences in burnout and PTSD scores between PICU and non-PICU staff members, either among physicians, nurses, or nursing assistants. Higher burnout and PTSD rates emerged after the death of a child and/or conflicts with patients/families or colleagues. Around 30% of the variance in BOS and PTSD is predicted by a frequent usage of the emotion-focused coping style and an infrequent usage of the problem-focused coping style. DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONS: Interventions to prevent and treat distress among paediatric staff members are needed and should be focused on: (i) promoting active emotional processing of traumatic events and encouraging positive thinking; (ii) developing a sense of detached concern; (iii) improving the ability to solve interpersonal conflicts, and (iv) providing adequate training in end-of-life care.

An Exploratory Study of Sevoflurane as an Alternative for Difficult Sedation in Critically Ill Children.

OBJECTIVES: To analyze the effectiveness of inhaled sevoflurane in critically ill children with challenging sedation. DESIGN: Prospective case series. SETTING: Two PICUs of university hospitals in Spain. INTERVENTIONS: Prospective observational study and exploratory investigation conducted in two PICUs in Madrid, Spain, over a 6-year period. Children treated with inhaled sevoflurane due to difficult sedation were included. Sevoflurane was administered via the anesthetic conserving device (AnaConDa) connected to a Servo-I ventilator (Maquet, Solna, Sweden). A morphine infusion was added to sevoflurane for analgesia. Demographic and clinical data, oral and IV sedatives, Sedation and Analgesic Clinical scores, and Bispectral Index Score monitoring were registered. MEASUREMENTS AND MAIN RESULTS: Twenty-three patients with a median age of 6 months old were included. Fifty percentage of the patients had critical heart diseases. Sedative and analgesic drugs used before starting sevoflurane were mainly midazolam (63%) and fentanyl (53%). Six patients (32%) also received muscle relaxants. Sevoflurane was administered for a median of 5 days (interquartile range, 5.5-8.5 d). Median end-tidal sevoflurane concentration was 0.8% (interquartile range, 0.7-0.85%), achieved with an infusion rate of 7.5 mL/hr (5.7-8.6 mL/hr). After 48 hours of treatment, some sedative drugs could be removed in 18 patients (78%). Median Bispectral Index Score value prior to sevoflurane administration was 61 (interquartile range, 49-62), falling to 42 (interquartile range, 41-47; p < 0.05) after 6 hours of treatment. Six patients (26%) presented withdrawal syndrome after sevoflurane suspension, and all of them had received sevoflurane at least for 6 days. The main side effect was moderate hypotension in seven patients (30%). CONCLUSIONS: Inhaled sevoflurane appeared to be an effective sedative agent in critically ill children and can be useful in those patients on mechanical ventilation difficult to sedate with conventional drugs. It can be administered easily in the PICU with conventional ventilators using the AnaConDa system. Withdrawal syndrome may occur with prolonged treatment.

Aneurisma micótico intracraneal en lactante con meningitis neumocócica / Intracranial mycotic aneurysm in a 5 month-old infant with pneumococcal meningitis

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Sevoflurane Therapy for Severe Refractory Bronchospasm in Children.

OBJECTIVES: To describe the effect of inhaled sevoflurane in the treatment of severe refractory bronchospasm in children. DESIGN: Retrospective case series. SETTING: Two PICUs of tertiary general university hospitals in Spain. PATIENTS: Ten patients ranging from 5 months to 14 years old with severe bronchospasm and acute respiratory failure requiring tracheal intubation and mechanical ventilation and treated with sevoflurane from 2008 to 2015. INTERVENTION: Inhaled sevoflurane therapy was initiated after failure of conventional medical management and mechanical ventilation. In two patients, sevoflurane was administered through a Servo 900C ventilator (Maquet, Bridgewater, NJ) equipped with a vaporizer and in the other eight patients via the Anesthetic Conserving Device (AnaConDa; Sedana medical, Uppsala, Sweden) with a critical care ventilator. MEASUREMENTS AND MAIN RESULTS: Inhaled sevoflurane resulted in statistically significant decreases of PaCO2 of 34.2 torr (95% CI, 8.3-60), peak inspiratory pressure of 14.3 cm H2O (95% CI, 8.6-19.9), and improvement in pH of 0.17 (0.346-0.002) within 6 hours of administration. Only one patient presented hypotension responsive to volume administration at the beginning of the treatment. All patients could be extubated within a median time of 120 hours (interquartile range, 46-216). CONCLUSIONS: Inhaled sevoflurane therapy decreases the levels of PaCO2 and peak inspiratory pressure values, and it may be considered as a rescue therapy in patients with life-threatening bronchospasm refractory to conventional therapy.

Use of combined transmucosal fentanyl, nitrous oxide, and hematoma block for fracture reduction in a pediatric emergency department.

OBJECTIVE: The objective of this study was to evaluate the use of combined inhaled nitrous oxide (NO), hematoma block (HB), and transmucosal fentanyl (TMF) as sedoanalgesia in the reduction of radioulnar fractures in children in a pediatric emergency department (PED). METHODS: A retrospective, analytical observational study examining the cases of radioulnar fracture reduction in PED from 2007 to 2009 in children from 4 to 15 years old. The cases were divided into 2 groups: those in which only NO + HB was used and those in which TMF was combined with NO + HB. The pain perceived by the child, the doctor, and the nurse was studied during the procedure with 0- to 10-point scales (10 being severe pain). Satisfaction of the medical professionals, duration of the procedure, and the adverse effects that appeared were also studied. RESULTS: Eighty-one children were included. Sixty-four children (79%) received NO + TMF + HB, and 17 children (21%) received NO + HB only. The pain perceived by the child during the procedure in the group receiving NO + TMF + HB was 2.5 (95% confidence interval [CI], 1.8-3.1) compared with 3.9 (95% CI, 2.3-5.5) in the NO + HB group (P = 0.035), the pain perceived by the doctor was 2.6 (95% CI, 2-3.2) compared with 4 (95% CI, 1.6-4), and by the nurse was 2.7 (95% CI, 2-3.3) compared with 3.9 (95% CI, 2.3-5.5), respectively. Adverse events appeared in 15.3% of the NO + TMF + HB group and in 40% of the NO + HB group. CONCLUSIONS: The association of NO + TMF + HB in the reduction of radioulnar fractures in PED improves pain control compared with the NO + HB combination. New studies are required to confirm the benefit and safety of this drug combination.