Hospital room or treatment room: Where should inpatient pediatric procedures be performed?

Current clinical practice and policy recommend that all inpatient medical p rocedures be performed in a treatment room and not in a child's hospital ro om. However, discussion of the rationale behind this recommendation, as wel l as supporting data, are lacking. A vignette-type survey was used to evalu ate the influence of child age and invasiveness of procedure on nurse prefe rences regarding room choice. The survey also asked for information conside red important to this issue. Nurses (N = 126) completed 1 of 6 surveys vary ing age of patient (3 years, 9 years, 14 years) and type of procedure (lumb ar puncture, intravenous line placement). Room choices were significantly a ssociated with procedure type and marginally associated with child age. Nur ses were more likely to choose the treatment room for the lumbar puncture a nd the hospital room for the intravenous line placement. The treatment room was selected most frequently for both procedures on the 3-year-old child. A number of other factors were also identified as being important to this c linical issue. Results suggest that better guidelines need to be developed that take into account child-specific, procedural, and situational factors.