For peds nurses:

Hey y'all! I am currently in a nursing program and researched a topic last semester regarding withdrawal assessment tools that can utilized for children > 4 months old. The hospital that posed the question did not currently have a tool to assess withdrawal symptoms from opioids, benzos, etc for children older than 4 months old. They were hoping for a tool similar to the Finnegan scale. So I was curious what kind of assessment tool do other hospitals utilize. Based on my research, in which not a lot of research has been done, the WAT (withdrawal assessment tool) seems to be a useful and concise tool. The nurses at the hospital I mentioned before used nursing judgment to assess children who are going through withdrawal.

Thanks!

Ashlea

That's tecnically the tool we used when I worked in the hospital but- by and large, I agree with the nurses at your hospital. You can tell when a child is withdrawing and you don't need to sit down and add up numbers to tell you so.

I work at a large children's hospital and we use the WAT scoring tool to assess for withdrawal symptoms. Usually a score >3 would warrant a prn med to be given to alleviate some symptoms.

[quote=ADAngel;7119637 The nurses at the hospital I mentioned before used nursing judgment to assess children who are going through withdrawal.

Well goodness, sure don't want nurses to actually use their judgment when we can dumb it all down with some numbers!

I work at a large children's hospital and we use the WAT scoring tool to assess for withdrawal symptoms. Usually a score >3 would warrant a prn med to be given to alleviate some symptoms.

We use a similar scale