Structural, material and functional organisation of centres performing paediatric anaesthesia

The French Society of Anesthesiology and Critical Care (Société Française d'Anesthésie et de Réanimation (SFAR)) and the French association of paediatric intensive care anaesthetists (Association des Anesthésistes Réanimateurs Pédiatriques d'Expression Française (ADARPEF)) have joined forces to provide guidelines for professional practice on the structural, material, and functional organisation of centres performing pediatric anesthesia.

A consensus committee of 16 experts from the SFAR and the ADARPEF was convened. The experts declared no conflict of interest before and throughout the process. The entire guidelines process was conducted independently of any industry funding. The authors were asked to follow the principles of the Grading of Recommendations Assessment, Development and Evaluation (GRADE) system to guide the assessment of the quality of evidence.

Four fields were defined: (1) structure and logistics; (2) equipment and materials; (3) training; and (4) functional organisation. For each field, the objective of the recommendations was to answer a number of questions formulated according to the PICO model (population, intervention, comparison, and outcomes). Based on these questions, an extensive bibliographic search was carried out on works published from 2000 to 2022, using predefined keywords according to PRISMA guidelines and analyzed using the GRADE® methodology. Because of the very small number of studies that could provide the necessary power for the most important endpoint (i.e., morbidity), it was decided, before drafting the recommendations, to adopt a Recommendations for Professional Practice (RPP) format rather than a Formalised Recommendations of Experts (RFE) format. The recommendations were formulated according to the GRADE® methodology, before being voted on by all the experts according to the GRADE grid method.

The experts' synthesis work and the application of the GRADE® method resulted in 34 recommendations dealing with the structural, material and functional organization of centers performing pediatric anaesthesia. After three rounds of rating and several amendments, an agreement was reached on all the recommendations.

Strong agreement exists among the experts to provide recommendations aimed at improving the structural, material and functional organization of centers performing paediatric anaesthesia.