Awareness and Dreaming during Anaesthesia in a Paediatric Hospital

Abstract

Most studies of awareness and dreaming during general anaesthesia exclude children because of uncertainty of accurate communication, but the authors consider that, with care and patience, children over about 7 years of age can give sensible and useful information. A prospective study was carried out in which 202 patients aged between 7 and 14 years undergoing general anaesthesia for a wide range of surgical procedures were interviewed post-operatively, and a questionnaire was sent to the parents approximately one month after discharge from the hospital. Twenty-two patients (11 per cent) could recall what was either a dream or a factual event, and ten of these (5 per cent) were considered to be definite recall of factual events.