Childhood Healthcare Experience, Healthcare Attitudes, and Optimism as Predictors of Adolescents’ Healthcare Behavior

Late adolescence and early adulthood is a time when people establish many of their life-style behaviors. Thus, in order to promote optimal health, it is important to identify factors predictive of young adults’ healthcare behavior. This study evaluated the relationship between measures of childhood healthcare experience, healthcare attitudes, and optimism with young adults’ healthcare behavior in a sample of college students (n = 100). Results suggested that prior healthcare experience, attitudes about healthcare, and optimism are associated with current healthcare behavior. In addition, the relation between childhood healthcare experience and current healthcare behavior was moderated by optimism, such that those who reported both more negative childhood healthcare experiences and low levels of optimism reported the least adaptive healthcare behaviors and those who reported the most positive childhood healthcare experience and the highest levels of optimism reported the most adaptive healthcare behavior

A Randomized Clinical Trial of Vapocoolant for Pediatric Immunization Pain Relief

OBJECTIVES: The purpose of the current study was to evaluate the effectiveness of vapocoolant for preschoolers’ immunization injection pain relief. STUDY DESIGN: 57 4- to 6-year-old children were randomized to vapocoolant alone or typical care conditions. Pain was measured at baseline and at injection via self-report, caregiver-report, nurse-report, and an observational scale. RESULTS: Self-report suggested that children in the vapocoolant alone condition demonstrated stronger increases in pain from baseline to injection than typical care. All other measures showed significant increases in pain from baseline to injection, but none indicted treatment effects. CONCLUSIONS: Consistent with prior studies, vapocoolant might not be an effective pain-management intervention for children’s intramuscular injections

Randomized Clinical Trial of Distraction for Infant Immunization Pain

Distraction has been shown to be an effective technique for managing pain in children; however, few investigations have examined the utility of this technique with infants. The goal of the current study was to investigate the effectiveness of movie distraction in reducing infants’ immunization distress. Participants were 136 infants (range = 1 to 21 months; M = 7.6 months, SD = 5.0 months) and their parents, all of whom were recruited when presenting for routine vaccinations. The parent-child dyads were randomly assigned to either a Distraction or Typical Care control condition. Infant and adult behaviors were assessed using a visual analog scale and a behavioral observation rating scale. Results indicated parents in the Distraction group engaged in higher rates of distraction than those in the Typical Care group, whereas there was no difference in the behavior of nurses in the Distraction and Typical Care groups. In addition, infants in the Distraction group displayed fewer distress behaviors than infants in the Typical Care group both prior to and during recovery from the injection. Findings suggest that a simple and practical distraction intervention can provide some distress relief to infants during routine injections

Narcotics and breast surgery: a review of current literature

Opioid consumption in the United States is the highest of all nations, with 42,000 people dying from opioid overdose in 2016. Patients with breast cancer undergoing curative-intent surgery are particularly vulnerable to developing persistent opioid use. It is anticipated that postoperatively nearly all of these women will receive prescription pain medication and that 20%-50% of patients will go on to develop acute and chronic pain after breast cancer surgery. In this review, we aim to better understand opioid use and ongoing efforts to reduce opioid abuse in breast cancer surgery patients