Having the drug available is different from having a complete sedation service.
The survey covered 171 emergency departments in nineteen European countries. Midazolam was widely available, while capnography, preprocedure checklists and full-team life-support certification were less uniformly reported. Staffing and space were common barriers.
The study measured reported resources and practices rather than patient-level complication rates. Most participating sites were tertiary or university centers, and not every European country was represented. Historical availability is not a current facility inspection.
For assessing a service, examine staff training, monitoring, recovery arrangements and rescue capability together with drug selection. A medication list cannot establish readiness for a particular child or procedure. The survey supports identifying system gaps rather than ranking sedatives by safety.
Source: Publication PMC8105204. Applications to expert review are interpretive analysis.
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