AORN journal
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Observational Study
Identifying pediatric emergence delirium by using the PAED Scale: a quality improvement project.
Pediatric emergence delirium is a postoperative phenomenon characterized by aberrant cognitive and psychomotor behavior, which can place the patient and health care personnel at risk for injury. A common tool for identifying emergence delirium is the Level of Consciousness-Richmond Agitation and Sedation Scale (LOC-RASS), although it has not been validated for use in the pediatric population. ⋯ The overall incidence of pediatric emergence delirium found by using the LOC-RASS with a retrospective chart review (3%) was significantly lower than the incidence found by using the LOC-RASS (7.5%) and PAED Scale (11.5%) during the implementation period. Our findings suggest that the PAED Scale may be a more sensitive measure of pediatric emergence delirium, and, in the future, we recommend that health care personnel at our facility use the PAED Scale rather than the LOC-RASS.