Pediatric Pain Assessment Paper

Pediatric Pain Assessment and Effects of Education Program

Hae Eun Hwang

Los Angeles City College

Pediatric Pain Assessment and Effects of Education Program

At some point of life, virtually everyone experiences some types of pain. Despite the availability of standardized pain management methods such as using analgesics and opioids, patients might inadequately managed for pain if pain assessments are done inefficiently. Nurses are in a unique position to assess pain as they have the most contact with the child and their family in hospital. Getting a thorough pain assessment occasionally hard for nurses with the patients whom cannot collaborate. For example, pain in infants and children can be difficult to assess.

This project is aiming to enhance nurses’ knowledge about pediatric pain assessment protocol in a community hospital emergency department. With a quasi-experimental study, their question of “In the pediatric population, does use of an education program and implementation of an assessment protocol improve nurses’ knowledge and standardize nurses’ pain assessment practices in the ED?” (Habich, M., & Letizia, M., 2015 p.2) were measured. The project setting was located in a community hospital on west of Chicago, in particular, the ED level II trauma center for children approximately 20,000 patients undergone the ED during the project. With over 100 nurses staffs, all ED nurses and 60 ED pediatric patient medical records were selected as the

Of seventy-eight emergency department nurses who completed the education program, the post-test scores have significantly increased by 12.6 % than the pre-test. The majority of the participants, about 88%, reported that the program went effectively and feel the confidence of assessing the pain with the pediatric patients. In addition, the author reviewed 60 patients’ EMR for two weeks after the nurses have completed the education program for demographics means and nurse’s pain-related documentations. Although the majority of patients (87%, n=52) had documentation of pain assessment at triage, only 32% (n=11) of the patients got pharmacological or non-pharmacological interventions for pain. Also, below 30% of had documentation of the characteristics of pain quality, onset, and progression. Pain assessment scales are well used after completing education program, but the characteristics of pain represented the lowest protocol adherence. The nurses in this project demonstrated an increase in knowledge and comfort level in assessing pediatric pain assessment when the EMR reviewed, the majority of the participants' adherence to use of correct pain scale and pain assessment at triage, but nonadherence to document the characteristic of pain and post-intervention have found.

Conclusion

Pain assessment is critical for pediatric patients not only in order to select a proper approach to treating pain but also to prevent further complication that might develop. With age appropriate