(1027) Pediatric Tracheostomy Care Educational Resources for Caregivers: A Scoping Review

Introduction: Standardized caregiver education for pediatric tracheostomy care during the transition-to-home period is associated with reduced readmissions, ED visits, and mortality. This review examines the content and consistency of caregiver-facing resources available online.

Methods: We conducted independent Google searches for “pediatric tracheostomy home care” and “child tracheostomy caregiver education materials.” Search-level exclusions included advertisements and peer-reviewed journal articles. Screening exclusions included non-specificity to pediatric tracheostomy care for caregivers, non-English text, paywall or login-restriction, and video-only results.

Results: After accounting for results found in both queries, 175 unique URLs were identified. Almost half of the exclusions were due to non-specificity to pediatric tracheostomy care for caregivers. Fifty-nine URLs met inclusion criteria. The predominant source type was hospital health systems (78%). Content on acute issues included respiratory distress (80%), when to seek emergency medical care (78%), signs of infection (75%), bleeding (60%), and accidental decannulation (70%, 4 of which omitted guidance beyond seeking medical care). Sources covered instructions on how to suction (71%), change tubes (70%), care for stoma (66%), and place ties (66%). Considerations were noted for humidification (80%), environmental safety (70%), feeding (66%), and sleep (44%).

Conclusions: Most online pediatric tracheostomy care guides cover several elements of acute and routine tracheostomy care, though depth across content domains varies widely. Guides addressing all major care domains are a minority of overall search results, suggesting inconsistency in the information caregivers encounter online. Future studies are needed to evaluate the quality of online resources and their accessibility to caregivers.