A young child's pain: how parents and nurses 'take care'

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Title: A young child's pain: how parents and nurses 'take care'
Author(s): Woodgate, Roberta; Kristjanson, Linda J.
Abstract: A qualitative study was undertaken to describe how parents and nurses respond to hospitalized young children experiencing pain from surgical interventions. Participant observation was used to identify care behaviours and the care context within which the children experienced, and caregivers witnessed, post-operative pain. Interviews with parents, nurses, and children were also conducted during the observation periods and prior to discharge to augment the observational data. Care provided by parents included comfort measures and vigilant monitoring of the children's pain. Nurses primarily provided technical care, used limited pain assessment approaches, and were not able to adequately alleviate the children's pain. Factors, strategies, and feelings associated with these care behaviours are described. The most salient recommendations arising from these findings are that nurses: (a) be provided with education about pain assessment and management, and (b) be empowered by policies that allow them to sensitively and effectively respond to children in pain.
Publication type: Journal article
Source: International Journal of Nursing Studies, Vol. 33, no. 3 (Jun 1996), pp. 271-284
Publication year: 1996
FOR Code(s): 1110 Nursing
Keyword(s): Analgesics; Child hospitalisation; Child parent relationships; Nurse patient relationships; Pain assessment; Pain measurement; Parenting; Postoperative pain; Preschool children; Professional-family relations; Psychological aspects; Social psychology; Social values
Publisher: Elsevier
ISSN: 0020-7489
Publisher URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/0020-7489(95)00062-3
Peer reviewed