Sedation And Analgesia For Neonates In Nicus Across Europe: The Europain Survey

Abstract

Background Pain and stress induced by mechanical ventilation, invasive procedures, or painful diseases supports the use of sedation/analgesia (S/A) in newborns admitted to Neonatal Intensive Care Units (NICUs). To date, these practices have not been studied at a large scale. Objective To determine current clinical practices regarding the use of S/A drugs in NICUs across Europe. Methods This epidemiological observational study on bedside clinical practices regarding S/A collected data for all neonates in participating NICUs until the infant left the unit (discharge, death, transfer) or for up to 28 days. Data collection occurred via an online database for 1 month at each NICU. All neonates up to 44 weeks gestation were included. Results From October 2012 to June 2013, 243 NICUs from 18 European countries collected data on 6680 eligible neonates. Of these, 2142 received tracheal ventilation (TV), 1496 non-invasive ventilation (NIV) and 3042 only spontaneous ventilation (SV). The median (IQR) gestational age of TV, NIV and SV neonates were 32.1 (28.1–37.4), 33.6 (31.0–36.6) and 37.9 (35.0–39.9), respectively (p < 0.001). Overall, more TV neonates [81.5% (n = 1746)] received S/A drugs than NIV neonates [17.8% (n = 266)] and SV neonates [9.3% (n = 282)]; p < 0.001. Fig. shows the rate of S/A use by country; table shows S/A drugs used. [...].