Opioid and Benzodiazepine Weaning in Pediatric Patients: Review of Current Literature.

Pediatric opioid and benzodiazepine withdrawal are avoidable complications of pain and sedation management that is well described in the literature. To prevent withdrawal from occurring, practitioners regularly use a steady decrease of pain and sedation medications, also known as a weaning or tapering schedule. The weaning schedule is highly variable based on clinician preference and is usually dependent on the clinician. The purposes of this review are to evaluate the current literature on the process of opioid and benzodiazepine weaning in pediatric patients and to assess the various standardized protocols used to decrease withdrawal occurrences. We conducted a search of the PubMed, MEDLINE, Cochrane Library, Cumulative Index of Nursing and Allied Health (CINAHL), Academic Search Premier, and PsycInfo databases. Studies were included if they described a wean or taper in pediatric patients aged 18 years or younger. Studies describing neonatal abstinence syndrome were excluded from the review. A total of 97 studies published between 2000 and 2014 were retrieved; of those, 15 studies met the inclusion criteria. Studies were evaluated for selection of withdrawal assessment tool, wean protocol summary, preferred weaning agents, benzodiazepine withdrawal, and wean-at-home regimen. The most common opioid-weaning protocol approaches described a 10-20% dose decrease per day. Benzodiazepine weaning was not regularly standardized or described. The use of a standardized opioid-weaning protocol reduced withdrawal rates compared with nonstandardized weaning plans. Benzodiazepine weaning was inconsistently evaluated and may have affected study outcomes. Identified areas of improvement include the use of newer withdrawal assessment tools validated in the older pediatric population and standardized withdrawal assessment and reporting.