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Children
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Comprehensive Care of Critically Ill Infants and Children
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Comprehensive Care of Critically Ill Infants and Children

A special issue of Children (ISSN 2227-9067). This special issue belongs to the section "Pediatric Nursing".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 5 March 2025 | Viewed by 3622

Special Issue Editor

Dr. Regina Okhuysen-Cawley

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Pediatric Medicine, Texas Children's Hospital, Houston, TX 77030, USA
Interests: the evaluation and management of difficult-to-manage and refractory symptoms; bioethics; medical education; global health
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

The landscape of Pediatric Critical Care Medicine has changed remarkably, on a global level, over the last few decades, allowing infants and children to survive illnesses and injuries previously associated with a poor outcome. 

The Pediatric Intensive Care Unit (often abbreviated as PICU) is a hospital area dedicated to the care of critically ill infants, children, adolescents, and in some cases, young adults. Pediatric Intensive Care Units are now found in most countries, although resource availability and allocation vary significantly, even within cities in the same country. Collaboration between experts in pediatric critical care medicine has promoted the creation of important guidelines, for example, for the treatment of septic shock and traumatic brain injuries. These and other important guidelines are periodically  revised and updated as indicated, and adapted to locally-available resources. Specialized pediatric intensive care units have also appeared: the first ones, of course, focused on perioperative care of children with congenital heart disease.  Larger hospitals now have intensive care professionals with sub-specialty interests and expertise and, sometimes,  the ability to geographically cohort critically ill Oncology, Neurology, Pulmonary Medicine, and severely injured children.

This Special Issue is focused on dissemination of state-of-the art global pediatric critical care, tapping on the experience of seasoned experts in the field, emerging clinical and research talent, and educators.

Topics to be addressed in this Special Issue include, but are not limited to :

  • Designing Environments for Critically-Ill children, their Families, and their Teams;
  • Critical Care for Children with Life-Threatening Injuries;
  • Neurological Critical Care
  • Advances in Perioperative Cardiac Critical Care and Heart Failure;
  • Contemporary Support Following Cardiac Arrest in Children
  • Advances in Non-Invasive Ventilatory Support in Pediatrics;
  • Comprehensive Management of Infants with Severe Sequelae of Prematurity;
  • Management of Primary and Secondary Pulmonary Hypertension in Pediatrics;
  • Extracorporeal Membrane Oxygenation and Emerging Paracorporeal Therapies in Pediatric Critical Care Medicine
  • Evidence-Based Management of Diabetes Mellitus and other Endocrine Disorders in Pediatric Critical Care Medicine
  • Management of Septic Shock and Life-Threatening Infections in Children;
  • Containment and Management of Emerging Pathogens in Pediatric Critical Care Medicine
  • Prevention and Management of Acute Kidney Injury in Children;
  • Prevention and Management of Acute Liver Injury in Children
  • Critical Care of Children with Underlying Malignancies;
  • Delirium and Psychiatric Emergencies in Pediatric Critical Care Medicine
  • Pediatric Rapid Response Teams in Pediatrics: Best Practices
  • Triage and Transport of Critically-ill Children
  • Complex Medical Decision-Making in Pediatric Critical Care Medicine;
  • Informatics in the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit
  • Critical Care for Children in Resource-Constrained Environments
  • Promoting Resilience in Professionals Caring for the Critically-Ill
  • Primary Palliative Care for Pediatric Critical Care Clinicians
  • Narrative Medicine in Pediatric Critical Care
  • Simulation in Pediatric Critical Care Medicine
  • Educating the Next Generation of Pediatric Critical Care Clinicians

We invite contributors to send expert, evidence-based opinion in their fields of interest, original research articles, clinical review articles, special articles, and illustrative case reports. I look forward to receiving your contribution.

Dr. Regina Okhuysen-Cawley
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Children is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • pediatric critical care medicine
  • neurologic critical care
  • perioperative cardiac critical care and heart failure
  • non-invasive ventilatory support in pediatrics
  • infants with severe sequelae of prematurity
  • primary and secondary pulmonary hypertension in pediatrics
  • diabetes mellitus in pediatrics
  • septic shock and life-threatening infections
  • management of severe infections due to emerging global pathogens
  • acute kidney injury in children
  • critical care of children with underlying malignancies
  • complex medical decision-making
  • primary palliative care

Published Papers (2 papers)

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Research

14 pages, 258 KiB  
Article
Comparison of Two Methods for Weaning from Nasal Continuous Positive Airway Pressure via the Cyclic Use of High-Flow Nasal Cannula or Room Air in Preterm Infants
by Shu-Ting Yang, Hao-Wei Chung and Hsiu-Lin Chen
Children 2024, 11(3), 351; https://doi.org/10.3390/children11030351 - 15 Mar 2024
Viewed by 731
Abstract
Nasal continuous positive airway pressure (NCPAP) is extensively used for preterm infants experiencing respiratory distress syndrome (RDS). Weaning from NCPAP includes direct weaning or gradually extending room air exposure. However, a high-flow nasal cannula (HFNC) is an alternative weaning method. Therefore, this study [...] Read more.
Nasal continuous positive airway pressure (NCPAP) is extensively used for preterm infants experiencing respiratory distress syndrome (RDS). Weaning from NCPAP includes direct weaning or gradually extending room air exposure. However, a high-flow nasal cannula (HFNC) is an alternative weaning method. Therefore, this study evaluated the clinical outcomes of HFNC and progressively increasing room air duration as weaning strategies. This study enrolled 46 preterm infants with RDS receiving NCPAP support who underwent the cyclic use of NCPAP and HFNC weaning protocol as the HFNC group; a retrospective analysis included 87 preterm infants weaned from NCPAP by gradually extending room air duration as the room air group. Differences in clinical conditions, complications, and short-term outcomes between the weaning methods were compared. The mean post-menstrual age at initiating NCPAP weaning was lower in the room air group than in the HFNC group (mean ± SD, 35.2 ± 2.3 weeks vs. 33.2 ± 2.5 weeks, p < 0.001). Hospital stay duration and total respiratory therapy days were longer in the HFNC group (96 ± 38 days and 80 ± 37 days, respectively) than in the room air group (78 ± 28 days and 56 ± 25 days, respectively), with p-values of 0.006 and <0.001. In conclusion, employing HFNC for weaning from NCPAP resulted in longer hospital admissions and respiratory therapy days than the room air method. However, further studies with a larger sample size are warranted for a more comprehensive evaluation, given the limited number of enrolled patients. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Comprehensive Care of Critically Ill Infants and Children)
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11 pages, 912 KiB  
Article
Quality Improvement Project to Improve Hand Hygiene Compliance in a Level III Neonatal Intensive Care Unit
by Pavani Chitamanni, Ahreen Allana and Ivan Hand
Children 2023, 10(9), 1484; https://doi.org/10.3390/children10091484 - 30 Aug 2023
Viewed by 2302
Abstract
This quality improvement project aimed to improve hand hygiene (HH) compliance in a Level III Neonatal Intensive Care Unit. The project was conducted over three Plan–Do–Study–Act (PDSA) cycles, with each cycle lasting two months. The interventions included healthcare worker (HCW) education on HH, [...] Read more.
This quality improvement project aimed to improve hand hygiene (HH) compliance in a Level III Neonatal Intensive Care Unit. The project was conducted over three Plan–Do–Study–Act (PDSA) cycles, with each cycle lasting two months. The interventions included healthcare worker (HCW) education on HH, repetition of education, and immediate feedback to HCWs. Compliance data were collected through covert observations of HCWs in the NICU. The overall compliance rate increased from 31.56% at baseline to 46.64% after the third PDSA cycle. The HH compliance was noted to be relatively low after touching patient care surroundings, at entry and exit from the NICU main unit, before wearing gloves and after removing gloves, at baseline and throughout the three PDSA cycles. HCW education alone did not result in significant improvements, highlighting the need for additional interventions. The study underscores the importance of involving NICU leadership and providing immediate feedback to promote HH compliance. Further efforts should focus on addressing the false sense of security associated with glove usage among HCWs, individual rewards and involving the healthcare staff in the shared goal of increasing HH compliance. Consideration of workload metrics and their impact on compliance could steer future interventions. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Comprehensive Care of Critically Ill Infants and Children)
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