Parent involvement in children's pain care: views of parents and nurses

Aim of the study. This study investigated the views of parents and nurses about the involvement of parents in the management of their child’s pain during the first 48 hours after surgery. Background. Children’s pain management has been found to be problematic and in need of improvement. Nurses are the key health care professionals with responsibility for managing children’s pain. Parents can make important contributions to assessment and management of their child’s pain. Methods. Using a phenomenological approach, nurses and parents were interviewed about their perceptions of parent involvement in pain management. Findings. The findings indicated that parental involvement in their child’s pain management is superficial and limited in nature. Parents described a passive role in relation to their child’s pain care and conveyed feelings of frustration. Only a minority of parents expressed satisfaction with their child’s pain care. Nurses perceived that there was adequate involvement of parents and adequate pain management for children. Conclusions. These findings may be somewhat explained by differing views and a lack of effective communication between parents and nurses. There is a clear need for nurses to discuss parent involvement with parents and negotiate roles in relation to pain management.</br

Families' needs when a child is long-term ill: A literature review with reference to nursing research

This article reports a literature review which draws together findings targeting families' needs when a child is long-term ill. The databases PubMed and CINHAL were searched from 1999 to 2003 during February 2004. The search terms were child health care, family caregivers, and needs and combinations of these. The search was limited to articles published in English and the Scandinavian languages. The analysis entailed a series of comparisons across articles focusing on major areas of inquiry and patterns of results. Various levels of needs are described, based on individual, family and social needs

Increased parental participation in a paediatric surgical day-care unit

Day care is currently a common way of providing treatment for minor and average paediatric surgical procedures. The purpose of this study was to assess possible benefits of increasing parental involvement in the care of operated children in a day-care surgery unit. By giving parents information and education about post-operative care, the goal was to facilitate recovery and minimize time spent in hospital. Results show that parents in the intervention group were well prepared to assume a greater part of the care of their children. Children in the intervention group appeared to have less pain and fewer children vomited post-operatively than children in the control group