Management of distressing procedures in children and young people: Time to adhere to the guidelines

摘要

Routine medical care involving blood sampling and other potentially painful procedures can lead to considerable distress for children and their carers. It is important that these should be undertaken with as little pain as possible. Yet despite the availability of effective topical and systemic analgesic agents, children and young people continue to find such procedures, particularly those involving needles, one of the most frightening aspects of attending primary and secondary healthcare services.1 While many cope, many do not; giving rise to a range of negative emotional and behavioural consequences, fear and pain. Some children and young people exhibit such distress that the process becomes fraught and eventually abandoned, or they are restrained, intensifying the anguish for all involved.