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Children's nurses' post-operative pain management practices: an observational study.
1Faculty of Health and Social Care Sciences, Kingston University, St. George's University of London, London, UK. atwycros@hscs.sgul.ac.uk <atwycros@hscs.sgul.ac.uk>
International Journal of Nursing Studies
|May 24, 2006
Summary
Nurses often fail to routinely assess pediatric post-operative pain or use non-drug pain relief methods. These suboptimal practices require improvement to align with best practice guidelines for children
Area of Science:
- Pediatric Nursing
- Pain Management
- Evidence-Based Practice
Background:
- Children frequently experience unrelieved moderate to severe post-operative pain.
- Existing evidence-based guidelines for pediatric pain management are not consistently applied in practice.
- There is a need to understand current nursing practices in managing children's pain.
Purpose of the Study:
- To observe and document how nurses manage post-operative pain in children.
- To evaluate the adherence of current nursing pain management practices to established guidelines.
Main Methods:
- An observational study was conducted on a pediatric surgical ward.
- Data were collected over 185 hours across 36 shifts, observing 13 registered nurses.
- An observer-as-participant role was utilized for continuous shadowing of nurses.
Main Results:
- Analgesic drugs were administered when children reported pain.
- Routine pain assessment and the regular use of non-pharmacological pain relief methods were infrequent.
- Overall pain management practices require significant improvement to meet current recommendations.
Conclusions:
- Sub-optimal pediatric pain management may stem from professional or ward culture.
- Gaps in nurses' theoretical knowledge may hinder effective pain management.
- Pain management may not be consistently prioritized, necessitating further investigation.