The Implementation of Pain Management and Assessment in Neonatal Intensive Care Units of Teaching Hospitals Affiliated to Tehran University of Medical Sciences

Abstract

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVE: Neonatal pain causes changes in the structure and function of brain in addition to acute physiologic symptoms and is followed by delayed development of infants. This study aims to determine the implementation of pain management and assessment in neonatal intensive care units. METHODS: This cross-sectional study was conducted among 138 nurses working in neonatal intensive care units through census. The data were collected using researcher – made questionnaire including two parts: pain management and assessment and demographic information. The minimum and maximum scores were 0 and 552, respectively, shown in the form of percentage. FINDINGS: At a response rate of 80.23%, the mean age of participants was 31.76±5.41 years and the mean experience of nurses working in a neonatal intensive care unit was 4.36 ± 3.58 years. The cases of implementation of pain management and assessment were as follows: care management for pain reduction (72.8%), allow parents to relieve pain (68.5%), swaddling (66.7%), pain assessment while implementing therapeutic and caring measures (62.9%), the use of sucrose solution (61.6%), teaching parents about observing pain symptoms in the infant’s face (58.7%), recording infant’s pain behaviors and the method for relieving the pain (52.4%), pain assessment at least every 4 hours (52.2%) and the use of valid tools for pain assessment (36.8%). CONCLUSION: According to the results of this study, pain management and assessment was implemented in more than half of the cases