State Behavioral Scale: a sedation assessment instrument for infants and young children supported on mechanical ventilation.

Objective: To develop and test the reliability and validity of the State Behavioral Scale for use in describing sedation/agitation levels in young intubated patients supported on mechanical ventilation.

Design: : In this prospective, psychometric evaluation, pairs of trained pediatric critical care nurse evaluators simultaneously and independently assessed a convenience sample of pediatric intensive care unit patients along eight state/behavioral dimensions and a numeric rating scale (NRS) of 0 (extremely sedated) to 10 (extremely agitated). The eight dimensions were derived from the sedation/agitation literature and expert opinion and included respiratory drive, response to ventilation, coughing, best response to stimulation, attentiveness to careprovider, tolerance to care, consolability, and movement after consoled, each with 3-5 levels.