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Sensation and experience of pain in children
1School of Nursing, Kaohsiung Medical College, Taiwan, Republic of China.
Insights
Children effectively describe their pain experiences, with factors like age, sex, and family structure influencing pain perception. Understanding these elements aids in developing better pain management strategies for pediatric patients.
Area of Science:
- Pediatric Pain Management
- Child Psychology
- Health Sciences
Background:
- Children's self-assessment of pain is crucial for effective treatment.
- Understanding factors influencing pain expression in children is vital.
- Previous research often relies on adult-reported pain in pediatric populations.
Purpose of the Study:
- To explore children's self-assessment of their pain experience.
- To identify factors influencing the language children use to describe pain.
- To understand pain characteristics and management strategies from the child's perspective.
Main Methods:
- Utilized a human figure outline and open-ended questionnaires.
- 106 children aged 9–16 years participated.
- Data collected on pain location, intensity, duration, sensation, causes, and management.
Main Results:
- Children clearly articulated their pain experiences.
- Significant differences observed in pain intensity and duration for headache, leg pain, backache, and shoulder pain.
- Abdominal pain occurrence varied by age and sex; toothache by hospitalization experience, age, and sex.
- Abdominal pain showed a significant relationship with family structure.
Conclusions:
- Children's self-reports provide valuable insights into pain perception and influencing factors.
- Tailored pain management strategies are needed based on pain type and individual child characteristics.
- Pain avoidance can be promoted through accident prevention and healthy lifestyle habits.
Abstract:
The study explored children's self-assessment of the pain experience and to understood the relative factors that influence the words used to represent children's pain. Using an outline of a human figure and a section of the open questionnaire to study, 106 nine- to sixteen-year-old children marked their pain location using colors to represent pain. They rated the intensity and duration of their pain, and described their experience of pain (sensation, causes, and ways to manage pain). The results showed that children clearly described pain, that there were appreciable differences between feelings of headache, leg pain, backache, and shoulder pain with pain intensity and duration of pain; that explained the difference of occurrence of abdominal pain in cross effect between age and sex; that explained the difference of the occurrence of toothache in cross effect among triangle of hospitalized experience, age, and sex; that there was significant relationship between abdominal pain and family structure. For severe abdominal pain or toothache the children could ask doctors for pain relief. For the others, they could take medication or rest for their middle or mild abdominal pain. The ways to manage leg pain were injection and massage. Change of position was applied to relieve backache. From the children's self-reports, we understand that causes of children's pain were derived from bad sleep, food, decayed teeth, exercising, and hitting. Pain avoidance is best achieved by accident prevention, cultivation of good health habits, and integration of daily living skills.