Factors Contributing to Postanesthetic Emergence Agitation in Pediatric Anaesthesia

Emergence agitation that has been first described by eckenhoff et al. in1960’s is a dissociated state of consciousness in which the child isinconsolable, irritable, uncooperative, typically thrashing, crying, moaningor incoherent. it is also a common problem in pediatric postanesthetic careunit with an incidence ranging from 10 to 80%. this literature reviewfocused on presence of emergence agitation and contributing factors inchildren under general anaesthesia. it was conducted on medline inpubmed area, alta vista data bases, cinhal and google scholar injanuary 2013 for publications written in english with the followingkeywords: “emergence agitation, etiology, treatment, pediatricanaesthesia, postanesthetic care unit, children, inhaled anesthetics,intravenous anesthetics and post anesthetic emergence delirium”. in thispaper, we intend to review the factors contributing postanestheticemergence agitation in children to improve our vision in this area.