Background: Pediatric surgery performed in a daycare unit has become the norm in the last few years. Children need special care in terms of psychological stress during the perioperative period 1 . There are many ways to reduce stress in children scheduled for surgery, including preoperative sedative premedication, induction of anesthesia in a familiar environment and “steal” induction in the mother’s arms 2,3 . It is important to consider parental satisfaction while delivering a healthcare service to children. Objective: To assess the overall parental satisfaction throughout the patient’s journey, including the preoperative, intraoperative and the postoperative periods. Setting: Daycare Unit, Department of Anesthesia, King Hamad University Hospital, Bahrain. Design: A Prospective Study. Method: Fifty parents were consented for the questionnaire-based study. Children of these parents were posted for different types of daycare surgery. The parents were asked to fill a form either in Arabic or English, before their children were discharged from the daycare ward. The parents were given an 11-point questionnaire 4 . Scoring these questions was based on their choice of 5 options including: (1) strongly agree, (2) agree, (3) neutral, (4) disagree and (5) strongly disagree. Fifty parents had been included in the study. Patient’s CPR numbers and telephone numbers of the parents were recorded. Questions 7 and 11 demanded individual answers rather than box-ticking. Result: “Strongly agree” and “agree” were taken as positive responses. The majority of parents answered positively to the questions asked. “Strongly disagree” and “disagree” were taken as negative responses. Neutral response was taken as a parent’s wish not to comment either positively or negatively. Conclusion: The majority of the parents were in positive agreement with the questions asked. The majority of the parents were satisfied that the PAC clinic gave them enough information about the anesthetic. The majority of parents were also satisfied with the amount of pain relief given in the recovery room and in the day-care ward. ______________________________________________________________________________ * Senior Registrar ** Director of Intensive Care and Consultant Anesthetist Associate Professor of Physiology and Critical Care, RCSI-MUB *** Senior Registrar Department of Anesthesia and ICU King Hamad University Hospital Kingdom of Bahrain Email: eamon.tierney@khuh.org.bh; aashishjain29@gmail.com INTRODUCTION In a questionnaire-based study conducted in the Royal Berkshire Hospital, it was concluded that parental satisfaction is an important outcome of quality of care delivered in the pediatric daycare unit 5 . The study also concluded that the nurses play a key role in maintaining a quality service and should therefore be involved in monitoring that service. Daycare surgery is increasingly popular because it reduces the length of stay in the hospital by facilitating admission and discharge on the same day. At least 70% of procedures in the pediatric age group are performed as day cases 6 . The increase in daycare surgery has become possible as a result of the availability of shorter-acting anesthetic agents and analgesics. In addition, the use of nerve blocks such as penile blocks and caudal blocks per-operatively has become more commonplace for pain management. Proper selection of patients is of the utmost importance for daycare surgery and one of the important categories of the patients in daycare surgeries is the pediatric age group. These patients are commonly posted for tonsillectomy, adenotonsillectomy, circumcision, undescended testes, inguinal herniotomy and other similar short duration surgeries with minimal blood loss. Children are vulnerable to separation anxiety and associated perioperative stress. In our hospital, we have a policy of child-friendly and parent-friendly management of the pediatric patient coming to theatre for surgery. The parent stays with the child until the child falls asleep. Anesthesia is always induced by inhalation to avoid placing a needle into a conscious child. When the child is transferred from theatre to the recovery room after surgery, the parent is called as quickly as possible to the recovery room to be with the child. In this manner, the child is awake without the presence of a parent for a minimum period of time. In addition, we place a large emphasis on good peri-operative analgesia in pediatric patients, with good intra-operative analgesia and with a rapid response to any complaint of pain expressed by the child in the recovery room. The aim of this study is to assess the overall parental satisfaction throughout the patient’s journey including the preoperative, intraoperative and the postoperative periods. METHOD The parents of 50 patients below 10 years of age posted for daycare surgery were included in the study. The children were anesthetized by anesthetic gas inhalation in the presence of one parent. The parent left the induction room immediately when the child fell asleep. At the end of surgery, the child was transferred to the recovery room. The parent was called to the recovery room as soon as the anesthetist and recovery nurse were satisfied that the child had recovered from the anesthetic. An eleven-point questionnaire was filled out by the parents just before their children were discharged from the daycare ward, see table 1. The questionnaire included the preoperative, intraoperative and postoperative periods. In response to each question, parents were requested to select one of the options on five-point score; the options were: strongly agree agree neutral disagree strongly disagree Identifying data on the questionnaire forms were the patient’s Central Population Registration (CPR) number and the telephone number of their parents. RESULT Table 1: Parents’ Responses Numbers and Percentages Question Number Strongly Agree Agree Neutral Disagree Strongly Disagree Not Attempted 1 Was your visit to the pre admission Clinic helpful? 31 16 0 1 1 1 2 Are you satisfied that the doctor/anesthetist gave you enough information about the anesthetic for your child? 34 10 3 2 1 0 3 Did the doctor or anesthetist answer all your questions? 37 10 2 0 0 1 4 Did the doctor/anesthetist explain enough details about the anesthetic procedure? 31 13 2 3 0 1 5 Was it helpful for you to go to operating room with your child? 42 6 2 0 0 6 If yes, was it helpful for your child? 39 9 1 0 0 1 7 Why was it helpful for your child? Discussed below 8 Were you called early enough to be with the child as he/she woke up in the recovery room? 39 9 0 0 1 1 9 Were you satisfied with the 40 8 1 0 0 1 amount of pain relief given to your child in the recovery room? 10 Were you satisfied with the amount of pain relief given to your child in the ward? 42 7 0 0 0 1 11 Do you have any suggestions as to how we can improve the anesthetic and Pain relief services for children? Discussed below