Recovery time and safe discharge of endoscopy patients after conscious sedation

The aim of this study was to identify the best method for determining when to safely discharge the endoscopy patient; specifically, it was designed to determine whether the patient's risk factors, intraoperative occurrences, and/or medications used during endoscopy should be used to determine the minimum length of stay postconscious sedation or whether a general policy can be used, as is currently practiced at many institutions. Preoperative, intraoperative, and postoperative data were collected on a convenience sample of 405 adult ambulatory outpatients undergoing upper endoscopy and/or colonoscopy. Subjects were also interviewed by phone within 48 hours of discharge to assess postdischarge complications and their duration. Age predicted length of time in recovery, but only 2% of the variation in recovery time was predicted by the study variables. Intraprocedure occurrences predicted postprocedure occurrence. The implications of these and other findings are discussed in relation to nursing practice and future research.