The Effects of Parental Presence in the Postanesthetic Care Unit on Children's Postoperative Behavior
Bibliographic record
Abstract
BACKGROUND: The effects on children of parental presence in the postanesthesia care unit (PACU) have not been extensively studied. The few published studies are retrospective, nonrandomized, or lack adequate controls. They suggest that parental presence in the PACU decreases crying and negative behavior change postoperatively. We performed this prospective, randomized, controlled study to determine whether the presence of a parent affected crying behaviors in the PACU and behavior change 2 weeks postoperatively. METHODS: Randomly selected patients, aged 2.0 to 8 years 11 months, ASA physical status I or II, and scheduled for elective outpatient surgery with an anticipated PACU stay of >10 minutes were randomly assigned to the parent present group (n = 150) or parent absent group (n = 150) in the PACU. All parents underwent the same preparation program. Reunification occurred once children's eyes had opened for the parent present group. In the PACU, crying was scored each minute after eye opening using a 5-point scale. Negative behavior change 2 weeks after discharge was determined using the Post Hospitalization Behavior Questionnaire. Because the anesthesia technique to be used was not determined a priori, data on the technique used were collected to ensure that groups were similar. Multiple and logistic regression techniques were used to determine predictors of crying in the PACU and behavior change 2 weeks postoperatively. RESULTS: Parental presence in the PACU made no difference in crying in the PACU. Negative behavior change 2 weeks postoperatively occurred more frequently in the parent absent group than the parent present group (45.8% vs 29.3%; P = 0.007). Multiple regression identified the following significant factors as predictive of larger proportion of time spent crying in the PACU (R(2) = 0.256, F[5, 273] = 15.66, P < 0.001): age <5 years (P < 0.001) and higher Children's Hospital of Eastern Ontario Pain Scale score at 15 minutes after arrival in day surgery (P < 0.001). Parental presence or absence from the PACU was not predictive of crying in the PACU, and neither were socioeconomic status nor intraoperative opioid analgesia. Logistic regression identified the following factors (chi(2)[4] = 26.62, P < 0.001) as predictive of negative behavior change at 2 weeks postoperatively: being younger than 5 years (P < 0.001) and being in the parent absent group (P = 0.003). CONCLUSION: For fit healthy children undergoing outpatient surgery, parental presence in the PACU decreases negative behavior change at 2 weeks postoperatively but makes no difference in crying in the PACU. Future studies of behavior change postoperatively should consider parental presence in the PACU a factor and determine whether the effect persists with other interventions.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.002 | 0.005 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".