Promoting children's pharmacological postoperative pain alleviation at home

This study evaluated the influence of parental use of Parents' Post-Operative Pain Measure (PPPM) on 1 to 2-year-old children's pharmacological pain alleviation at home. Fifty parents whose child had undergone day surgery in three University Hospitals in Finland between January 2006 and June 2007 completed questionnaires. Parents of the intervention group (n=29) were provided with PPPM as an intervention to promote children's pain relief at home, while parents in the control group (n=1) did not receive the PPPM. The use of PPPM had a positive effect on pain management; total dosing of analgesics was higher in the intervention group on all three study days. However, the difference was not statistically significant. Optimal dosing was provided only for 12% of the children in the intervention group, whereas no children in the control group received optimal dosing. The parents of the intervention group did not consider analgesics to be helpful more often than the parents in the control group. In conclusion, the use the PPPM may promote parents' management of their child's post-operative pain at home. Larger samples in further studies are needed to verify the findings of this study.