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Expected and reported pain in children undergoing ear piercing: a randomized trial of preparation by parents
Pamela A Spafford1, Carl L von Baeyer, Carrie L Hicks
1Department of Psychology, University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon SK, Canada.
Insights
Providing children with preparatory information before painful procedures, like ear piercing, helps create accurate expectations and significantly reduces their reported pain. This parental guidance is key to managing pediatric procedural pain.
Area of Science:
- Pediatric Psychology
- Pain Management
- Child Development
Background:
- Procedural pain in children is a significant concern during medical interventions.
- Parental involvement can influence children's coping mechanisms and pain perception.
- Effective strategies are needed to reduce children's distress during minor painful procedures.
Purpose of the Study:
- To experimentally evaluate the effectiveness of parental preparatory information in managing children's procedural pain.
- To assess if preparatory information leads to more accurate expectations regarding pain.
- To determine the impact of parental guidance on experienced pain levels in children.
Main Methods:
- Sixty children (aged 5-12) undergoing ear piercing were randomly assigned to receive parental preparatory information or a control activity.
- Parents in the information group read a description of the ear-piercing procedure and sensations.
- Pain expectations and experienced pain were measured using the Visual Analogue Scale (VAS) and Faces Pain Scale-Revised (FPS-R).
Main Results:
- Children who received preparatory information reported significantly less experienced pain (M=27.3) compared to the control group (M=49.8).
- Prepared children developed more accurate expectations about the pain associated with the procedure.
- High correlations (r=0.87 to 0.96) confirmed the validity of the pain measurement scales (VAS and FPS-R).
Conclusions:
- Parental provision of preparatory information is an effective method for creating accurate expectations in children.
- This preparatory information significantly reduces the procedural pain experienced by children.
- The findings support the use of parental guidance as a simple intervention to mitigate pediatric procedural pain.
Abstract:
This study examined experimentally the effectiveness of preparatory information provided by parents in creating accurate expectations and reducing children's procedural pain. Ear piercing was used as an analogue to minor painful medical procedures. Sixty children, aged 5-12 years, requesting ear piercing and accompanied by their parents, were randomly assigned to a parental information or contact-control condition. Parents in the information group were asked to read their child a description of the procedures and sensations of ear piercing. Parents in the contact-control condition played picture games for the same amount of time. Expected pain was measured on a visual analogue scale (VAS) and the Faces Pain Scale-Revised (FPS-R) before and after the parental information or contact-control procedure. Experienced pain was measured on the same two scales immediately after the ear piercing. Prepared children had more accurate expectations and reported significantly less pain (M=27.3) than non-prepared children (M=49.8). The validity of the measures was supported by strong correlations (r=0.87 to 0.96) between the VAS and FPS-R. The findings suggest that parental provision of preparatory information creates accurate expectations and reduces pain for children.