Pediatric Anesthesia, Psychology, and Interventions: A Narrative Review

The maintenance of pediatric perianesthetic mental health is more specific compared with that in adults, involving anesthesiology, pharmacology, psychology, nursing, pediatrics, and other disciplines. Although anesthesia can effectively prevent children from recalling the events of the surgical procedure, about 65-80% of children suffer from great anxiety and discomfort during surgical preparation, especially during anesthesia induction. The most obvious consequence of anxiety during anesthesia induction is that children are prone to extreme discomfort and mania during induction, and postoperative behavioral disorders are prone to occur after awakening, which is manifested as anxiety about separation from parents, anger, fear of strangers, loss of appetite, nightmares, nocturia, and other adverse symptoms. Most of these symptoms will go away on their own, but some may persist for a long time and have adverse psychological and physical effects in the future. Caring for the psychology of pediatric anesthesia induction can not only make anesthesia induction smoother but also reduce the incidence of delirium in children during awakening, reduce psychological trauma, and shorten the postoperative monitoring time. It is an important task for anesthesiologists to optimize the preoperative preparation of children, improve the induction method of anesthesia, and maintain pediatric mental health.