Although parents are generally satisfied with their child's postoperative care, children continue to experience moderate-to-severe pain postoperatively

摘要

Despite the availability of evidence-based guidelines, children continue to experience moderate-to-severe pain following surgery. Children's pain is not managed effectively by nurses for many reasons including: nurses not always evaluating the effectiveness of pain-relieving interventions; and nurses' perception that particular procedures are associated with some level of expected pain, rather assessing pain and listening to children. Furthermore, parents and children may be uncomfortable about raising concerns in how the child's pain is managed.Parents' beliefs can also hinder the management of their child's pain because of fears about their child experiencing unpleasant side effects of analgesics and about their child developing an addiction to analgesics. In addition, there is evidence to suggest parents are satisfied with the postoperative care received when their child is in hospital, regardless of the severity of pain experienced.