Pediatric Sedation: Using Secondary Data to Describe Registered Nurse Practice in Radiology

Children often require sedation for procedures because of their developmental level and difficulty complying with positioning. There are few studies that describe nurse sedation practices or adverse events. Studies of pediatric sedation care have small sample sizes that are inadequate to detect adverse events. This study reports practices and outcomes of sedation delivered to children from infancy up to 14 years of age, who were monitored only by registered nurses during diagnostic radiology procedures drawn from a sample of 12,584 cases from the Pediatric Sedation Research Consortium database. There were 727 adverse events (5.78%). However, no deaths, cardiac arrests, intubations, or aspirations were reported in this sample. The most common adverse event was inadequate sedation/agitation/delirium 196 (155.8/10,000) and desaturation below baseline for more than 30 s 173 (138/10,000). Further research comparing sedation practices and outcomes by type of providers, including nurses, is necessary to improve practice.