Preoperative Screening for Sleep-Disordered Breathing in Children: A Systematic Literature Review

Clinicians frequently underestimate or do not assess sleep-disordered breathing (SDB) in children in ambulatory surgical centers. Identifying the disorder and obtaining information relevant to anesthesia management can be assisted by the use of a standard questionnaire during preoperative assessment. We wanted to determine whether a preoperative screening tool increases clinician awareness of SDB in children and leads to a decrease in perioperative respiratory adverse events. We reviewed 21 articles to identify reliable screening tools for pediatric SDB in ambulatory surgical centers and selected six articles for the review. We concluded that the Snoring, Trouble Breathing, Un-Refreshed questionnaire is a reliable preoperative SDB identification tool and that awareness of preexisting SDB in children presenting for surgery in ambulatory surgical centers aids in designing a patient-specific plan of care to reduce perioperative respiratory adverse events. Standardizing the use of the Snoring, Trouble Breathing, Un-Refreshed questionnaire during the preoperative evaluation is a safety measure for pediatric surgical patients.