The pain of children with sickle cell disease: the nursing approach

To describe how nurses identify the pain in children with sickle cell disease (SCD) and to list the strategies used by them in the evaluation and control of pain.

This is a qualitative, descriptive and exploratory research, performed through semi-structured interviews with 13 nurses. The interviews were transcribed and after this process the qualitative data were organized according to thematic analysis.

This study showed that the nurses can identify pain in children with SCD from the signals they emit, such as: constant crying, restlessness, facial expressions and verbal reports. Pain is difficult to evaluate due to the lack of instruments, such as a pain scale. For pain control they use emotional support, promotion of comfort and the administration of drugs prescribed by the doctor.

The nurses recognize the pain of the child and use pharmacological and non-pharmacological methods to control it but have difficulties to assess it.