Awareness and Dreaming during Anaesthesia in a Paediatric Hospital

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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.