INTRODUCTION Children’s pain management is among the most complex problems in nursing practice mainly due to its subjective character that affects both the patient’s and the nurse’s attitudes on its presence.
AIM The aim of the study was to explore the pain management techniques used by nurses in Greek pediatric hospitals.
MATERIAL-METHOD 125 pediatric nurses working in pediatric and surgical departments as well as in emergency departments (ED). Structured questionnaires based on literature were answered by the nurses participating in the survey. Statistical Package for Social Sciences for Windows SPSS 13.0 was used for the statistical analysis and the level of statistical significance was 0.05.
RESULTS Pain assessment scales were available in the 59.1% of the surgical departments, in 13.8% of EDs and in 4.3% of pediatric departments. Their use was significantly higher in surgical departments than the others (x2=29.2, df=2, P>0.001). Almost all ED nurses inform the child before a painful procedure (96,6%), and a high percentage of pediatric and surgical department nurses tend to do so (87% and 95.5% correspondingly). The presence of parents during procedures was significantly higher in EDs than in pediatric and surgical departments (x2=17.2, df=2, P>0.001). Nurses’ beliefs and attitudes were affected by the child’s age and their own working experience. Written guidelines about pain management in home were available in 80.9% of EDs, while in the pediatric departments the percentage was just 4.8% and zero for the surgical departments.
CONCLUSIONS Pain management in Greek pediatric hospitals is insufficient and there are major differences among departments. Therefore further efforts should target on an efficient and applicable way of pain management.
Original Paper