Pain assessment and improvement in children treated by accredited nurses: descriptive study

• Main Authors: Pilar Brea-Rivero, Víctor Reyes-Alcázar, Manuel Herrera-Usagre, Isabel M Morales-Gil
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Medwave Estudios Limitada 2013-12-01
• Series: Medwave
• Online Access: http://www.medwave.cl/link.cgi/Medwave/Estudios/Investigacion/5860

Background.Pain assessment is a complex task that requires considerable effort due to its multidimensional nature. This assessment is, if anything, more complex in the case of children due to the difficulties of communication and language proficiency. Aim. To analyse pain reduction achieved by accredited nurses depending on the age of the children treated. Method. 161 assessments of perceived pain in children aged 0 to 15 years conducted by 93 accredited nurses between September 2006 and July 2011 were used. Chi-square tests were applied for descriptive analysis. Odds ratio for probabilities of reducing pain to 0 was calculated according the age of the children. Results. The results show that nurses have a higher level of competency in reducing pain in children aged between 2 and 3 years, showing a mild negative trend in the ability to reduce pain to zero, with increasing child's age. Conclusions. This paper addresses the assessment of pain, held by all child-care nurses who work in Public Health Services of Andalusia (Spain), which have been accredited by the Andalusian Agency for Healthcare Quality. Nurses have used different types of pain measurement scales, depending on the cognitive development of children treated.