• Anna Camporesi, Franco Díaz-Rubio, Christopher L Carroll, and Sebastián González-Dambrauskas.
• Division of Pediatric Anesthesia and Intensive Care Unit, Department of Pediatrics, Children's Hospital Vittore Buzzi, Milan, Italy.
• J Paediatr Child Health. 2020 Jul 1; 56 (7): 1010-1012.

AbstractCritical care management of patients with COVID-19 has been influenced by a mixture of public, media and societal pressure, as well as clinical and anecdotal observations from many prominent researchers and key opinion leaders. These factors may have affected the principles of evidence-based medicine and encouraged the widespread use of non-tested pharmacological and aggressive respiratory support therapies, even in intensive care units (ICUs). The COVID-19 pandemic has predominantly affected adult populations, while children appear to be relatively spared of severe disease. Notwithstanding, paediatric intensive care (PICU) clinicians may already have been influenced by changes in practices of adult ICUs, and these changes may pose unintended consequences to the vulnerable population in the PICU. In this article, we analyse several potential iatrogenic causes of the detrimental effects of the current pandemic to children and highlight the risks underlying a sudden change of clinical practice.© 2020 Paediatrics and Child Health Division (The Royal Australasian College of Physicians).

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