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PEDIATRIC ANESTHESIA

Scheduling Elective Pediatric Procedures That Require Anesthesia: The Perspective of Parents

Edward R. Mariano, MD^*, Larry F. Chu, MD, MS (Biochemistry), MS (Epidemiology), Chandra Ramamoorthy, MBBS, and Alex Macario, MD, MBA

From the *Department of Anesthesia, University of California, San Diego School of Medicine, San Diego; and Departments of Anesthesia, Health Research and Policy, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, California.

Address correspondence and reprint requests to Edward R. Mariano, MD, Department of Anesthesia, University of California at San Diego Medical Center, 200 West Arbor Drive, San Diego, CA 92103-8770 (619) 543-5720. Address e-mail to ermariano{at}ucsd.edu.

Daily variability in volume of elective pediatric procedures that require anesthesia may lead to an imbalance between available operating room resources and case load. Longer intervals between scheduling and the surgical date generally result in higher operating room utilization. In this study, we sought to determine which factors influence when parents schedule their children for procedures. We also aimed to identify parents’ ideal and longest acceptable waiting intervals and determine whether type of procedure, for example, affects scheduling. From a convenience sample of 250 randomly selected parents of children presenting for elective surgery, 236 completed surveys were analyzed. The remaining 14 surveys were not returned. Overall, parents scheduled their child’s procedure a median of 4.3 wk (interquartile range 2.0–8.6) in advance and reported an ideal waiting interval of 3 wk (interquartile range 2–4), and longest acceptable interval of 6 wk (interquartile range 4–10). Parents were willing to wait longer to schedule cardiac (4 wk, P = 0.004) and plastic (3.5 wk, P = 0.024) surgery when compared with general surgical procedures. Overall, parents ranked severity of the child’s illness, earliest available time, and surgeon’s suggested date as the three most important factors influencing when their child’s surgery is scheduled. The timetable for scheduling procedures was highly correlated with both mother and father having available time off work (_b = 0.72, P < 0.0001). Surprisingly, parents did not show a preference for scheduling cases during vacation or summer months.

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Anesthesia & Analgesia® is published for the International Anesthesia Research Society® by Lippincott Williams & Wilkins with the assistance of Stanford University Libraries' HighWire Press®. Copyright 2006 by the International Anesthesia Research Society. Online ISSN: 1526-7598   Print ISSN: 0003-2999