Normalizing: postoperative acute abdominal surgical pain in Thai children

The purpose of this study was to gain a greater understanding of the postoperative pain experience of Thai children aged 5 to 7 years who had undergone abdominal surgery. A grounded theory approach was used to gain an understanding of the core process. A total of 15 children who had undergone abdominal surgery comprised the study. Data were collected by interviews, observations, and drawing and play interviews. The major task/hypothesis generated in this study was that children were addressing the process of normalizing and that creating an environment that allowed a child to normalize might be expected to greatly contribute to pain reduction.