Complication of Anesthesia in Children: A Prospective Observational Study

Abstract

Background: Any anaesthetic procedure, either regional or general, has some potential for complications. For this reason, careful preoperative assessment and adequate planning of appropriate anesthetic are the cornerstones in safe pediatric anesthetic practice. But in Bangladesh, we have very limited research-based information regarding the complication of anaesthesia in children. Aim of the Study: The aim of this study was to assess the complications of anesthesia in children. Methods: This was a prospective observational study. The study was conducted in Department of Aneaesthesia, ICU & Pain Medicine, Shaheed Suharawardy Medical College and Hospital, Dhaka, Bangladesh during the period from January 2018 to December 2018. In total 62 children, aged between 1 day and 15 years prepared for anesthesia associated surgery were selected as the study subjects. The incidence of intra-operative as well as post- anesthesia recovery room complications was recorded and analyzed. Data were analyzed and by using MS Excel and SPSS version 23.0 program as per necessity. Results: In this study, in analyzing the complications among the participants we observed that, bronchospam and bradycardia and hypotension were the most common intraoperative complications which were found in 11%, 10% and 8% cases respectively. On the other hand, tachycardia, prolonged unconsciousness and hypoventilation were found as the most common postoperative complications among the participants which were found in 19%, 10% and 8% cases respectively. Besides those complications some cases with restlessness, respiratory arrest, pain, shivering, hypertension, hemorrhage and laryngospasm were found in both the periods. Conclusion: Anesthesia-related morbidity and mortality can be minimized with early identification and prompt management of any complication. In this current study we observed that, preterm infants are major prone to develop respiratory complications because of using anesthesia.