Four-in-One: A Comprehensive Checklist for the Assessment of Pain, Undersedation, Iatrogenic Withdrawal and Delirium in the PICU: A Delphi Study

OBJECTIVES: Children's pain, undersedation, iatrogenic withdrawal syndrome and delirium often have overlapping symptoms, which makes it difficult to decide why a child in the PICU is not comfortable. Validated assessment tools for these conditions are available, but regular assessment with multiple instruments may be too time-consuming. Therefore, we aimed to develop a new holistic instrument–the mosaIC checklist–that incorporates the assessment of the four conditions. MATERIALS AND METHODS: We conducted a two-rounds international Delphi study among experts working in PICUs worldwide to find cues that in combination or separately are relevant for the four conditions. RESULTS: In the first Delphi round, 38 of the 48 enrolled participants (79%) completed a questionnaire; in the second round 32 of 48 (67%). Eventually, 46 cues in eight categories (e.g., facial, vocal/verbal, body movements, sleep /behavioral state, posture/muscle tone, agitation, physiological and contextual) were found relevant. Thirty-three (72%) were considered relevant for pain, 24 for undersedation (52%), 35 for iatrogenic withdrawal syndrome (76%) and 28 (61%) for pediatric delirium. Thirteen cues (28%) were considered relevant for all four conditions; 11's (24%) for only one condition. CONCLUSION: This Delphi study is the first step in developing a 4-in-1 comprehensive checklist to assess pain, undersedation, iatrogenic withdrawal syndrome and delirium in a holistic manner. Further validation is needed before the checklist can be applied in practice. Application of the mosaIC checklist could help determine what condition is most likely to cause a child's discomfort–and at the same time help reduce the PICU staff's registration burden.