Post-hospitalisation behavioural changes in children: effects of day-stay surgery.

Two comparable groups of young children, aged one to ten years, underwent minor ear, nose and throat surgery. One group was treated as day-stay patients at a private clinic and the other group spent two nights in a teaching hospital. Anaesthesia and surgery were similar in both groups. The incidence of post-hospitalisation behavioural changes was reported as 56.6% for the day-stay cases and 62.5% for the in-patients. The relative frequencies of the reported changes were not different between the groups except for apathy in the in-patient group and sleeping in parents bed in the day-stay group (p < 0.001). Parental satisfaction with the experience was high, 77% of the comments being positive.