Presença de familiares durante a indução anestésica de crianças: Revisão da literatura

Children usually become anxious and agitated during anesthetic induction, increasing the risk of apnea and laryngospasm. The presence of a family member can decrease anxiety and improve cooperation, reducing risks. Objective: To identify, in the literature, positive and negative aspects that the experience to witnessing anesthetic induction in children can provide to family members, the children themselves, and the surgical center staff. Method: A literature review using the keywords “parents”, “child”, and “surgicenters” on scientific articles published between 1989 and 2012 indexed at National Library of Medicine (MEDLINE) and Latin American and Caribbean Health Sciences (LILACS) database. Results: The experiences of allowing the presence of parents in the anesthetic induction room show that there is a eduction of the anxiety level of children and parents, with lower necessity for physical restraint. Regarding the surgical center staff, despite the anxiety presented by professionals in relation to their performance and the difficulties related to the human resources needed to implement this practice, a better nurse-patient relationship was observed. Conclusions: In view of the benefits arising from the adoption of this practice, this work shows the importance of increasingly enabling parental presence during induction of anesthesia in children.