Sablewski Armin, Eimer Christine, Nemeth Marcus, Miller Clemens
Department of Anesthesiology and Intensive Care Medicine, University Medical Center Schleswig-Holstein, Campus Kiel, Arnold-Heller-Straße 3, Haus R3, Kiel, 24105, Germany, +49 431 500 20701.
Department of Anesthesiology, University Medical Center Goettingen, Goettingen, Germany.
JMIR Pediatr Parent. 2025 Jan 27;8:e64561. doi: 10.2196/64561.
Managing preoperative anxiety in pediatric anesthesia is challenging, as it impacts patient cooperation and postoperative outcomes. Both pharmacological and nonpharmacological interventions are used to reduce children's anxiety levels. However, the optimal approach remains debated, with evidence-based guidelines still lacking. Health care professionals using social media as a source of medical expertise may offer insights into their management approaches.
A public survey targeting health care professionals was disseminated via social media platforms to evaluate current practices in anxiety management in children. The same questions were posed during an annual meeting of pediatric anesthesiologists with their responses serving as reference. The primary objective was to compare pediatric anesthesia expertise between the groups, while secondary objectives focused on identifying similarities and differences in preoperative anxiety management strategies hypothesizing expertise differences between the groups.
Two surveys were conducted. The first survey targeted 100 attendees of the German Scientific Working Group on Pediatric Anesthesia in June 2023 forming the "Expert Group" (EG). The second open survey was disseminated on social media using a snowball sampling approach, targeting followers of a pediatric anesthesia platform to form the "Social Media Group" (SG). The answers to the 24 questions were compared and statistically analyzed. Questions were grouped into 5 categories (pediatric anesthesia expertise, representativity, structural conditions, practices of pharmacological management, and practices in nonpharmacological management).
A total of 194 responses were analyzed (82 in EG and 112 in SG). The EG cohort exhibited significantly greater professional experience in pediatric anesthesia than the SG cohort (median 19 vs 10 y, P<.001), higher specialist status (97.6% vs 64.6%, P<.001), and a greater pediatric anesthesia volume (43.9% vs 12% with more than 500 cases per year, P<.001). Regarding the representativity, 2 items out of 4 were statistically significant (level of care of institution, annual caseload of institution). Regarding the overall anxiety management practices used, there is a heterogeneous response pattern within both groups.
Despite heterogeneous approaches, health care professionals using social media demonstrated less expertise in pediatric anesthesia but showed minimal differences in the daily management of preoperative anxiety compared with pediatric anesthesia experts. Our study highlights the potential for meaningful use of social media but future studies should explore the impact of social media health care professionals' knowledge in other specific topics. Additionally, regarding preoperative anxiety, further recommendations are needed that could help to standardize and improve anxiety levels in children.
在小儿麻醉中管理术前焦虑具有挑战性，因为它会影响患者的配合度和术后结果。药物和非药物干预措施都被用于降低儿童的焦虑水平。然而，最佳方法仍存在争议，且缺乏循证指南。利用社交媒体作为医学专业知识来源的医疗保健专业人员可能会提供有关其管理方法的见解。
通过社交媒体平台针对医疗保健专业人员开展一项公开调查，以评估儿童焦虑管理的当前实践。在小儿麻醉医师年会上提出了相同的问题，并将他们的回答作为参考。主要目的是比较两组之间的小儿麻醉专业知识，次要目的侧重于确定术前焦虑管理策略的异同，并假设两组之间存在专业知识差异。
进行了两项调查。第一项调查针对2023年6月德国小儿麻醉科学工作组的100名参会者，组成“专家组”（EG）。第二项公开调查通过雪球抽样法在社交媒体上进行，针对一个小儿麻醉平台的关注者，组成“社交媒体组”（SG）。对24个问题的答案进行比较并进行统计分析。问题分为5类（小儿麻醉专业知识、代表性、结构条件、药物管理实践和非药物管理实践）。
共分析了194份回复（EG组82份，SG组112份）。EG队列在小儿麻醉方面的专业经验明显多于SG队列（中位数分别为19年和10年，P<0.001），专家地位更高（97.6%对64.6%，P<0.001），小儿麻醉量更大（每年超过500例的比例分别为43.9%对12%，P<0.001）。关于代表性，4项中的2项具有统计学意义（机构的护理级别、机构的年病例量）。关于所采用的总体焦虑管理实践，两组内的回答模式均不相同。
尽管方法各异，但使用社交媒体的医疗保健专业人员在小儿麻醉方面的专业知识较少，但与小儿麻醉专家相比，在术前焦虑的日常管理方面差异最小。我们的研究凸显了有效利用社交媒体的潜力，但未来的研究应探讨社交媒体医疗保健专业人员的知识在其他特定主题上的影响。此外，关于术前焦虑，还需要进一步的建议，以帮助规范和改善儿童的焦虑水平。
