The current practice and care of paediatric patients post cardiac catheterisation.

BACKGROUND: Literature is lacking to guide standardised care and assessment practices for paediatric patients post cardiac catheterisation. In response to this gap, we sought to describe the current state of practice in cardiology programmes performing paediatric cardiac catheterisations procedures in the United States of America.Materials and methodsA web-based survey was distributed to the Congenital Cardiovascular Interventional Study Consortium Listserv, with representation from 113 identified institutions. A 36-question survey, including fixed-choice and open-ended questions, was developed and piloted for reliability and validity before distribution. Data were summarised descriptively with count and frequency or median and range.

RESULTS: Of the 113 identified institutions, 52% (n=59) responded to the survey. Manual pressure is used to achieve haemostasis by 94.9% of the respondents. Pressure dressings are used by a majority of the facilities and the length of time for bed rest is variable, with the majority using 6 hours for arterial access and 4 hours for venous access. Predominantly, respondents use the time of haemostasis as the start time of bed rest while a third of respondents reported using the time the sheath was removed.

CONCLUSION: In this study, variation in a number of post catheterisation care and assessment practices for paediatric patients was noted across cardiology programmes. Information from this assessment identifies key opportunities to collaborate in developing standardised practices for the care and assessment of the paediatric patients post catheterisation.