Pediatric Pain Management - an Intervention Study

Pediatric Pain Management in Post Anesthesia Care Units - an Intervention Study

This study will explore nurses' pediatric postoperative pain management knowledge and clinical practices. The aim is to evaluate if a tailored educational intervention will improve nurses' knowledge and attitudes of pain management and pain management practices. The intervention offered is education and skills training. The study has a pre-post design and a comparison group. Data is collected before the intervention is started (baseline T1) and again one month (T2) and six months (T3) after the intervention. Nurses working in six postoperative units are participating. The units are the largest pediatric postoperative units of each of the six university hospitals covering all health regions in Norway. Three different approaches will be used to collect data (survey with questionnaire, observations of clinical practice, and interviews with children).

The study will explore the nurses' pediatric postoperative pain management knowledge and clinical practice, and evaluate if a tailored educational intervention will improve postoperative pain management practice. This will be achieved by first exploring the pediatric postoperative pain management practice using different approaches (study 1). Then, an intervention will be developed based on the results from the first study and available research in the area (study 2). Finally, the investigators will investigate if the tailored interventions with nurses at postoperative units improve the nurses' knowledge of pediatric pain management (study 3).

Studies Activity:

Study 1: Explore nurses' pediatric postoperative pain practices.

Data collection (baseline T1):

• Knowledge and attitudes (questionnaire PNKAS-N)
• Observational study of nurses clinical practice
• Interview with children about pain and pain management after surgery

Study 2: Develop a tailored educational intervention

• Literature review
• Results from baseline
• Feedback from the head of the relevant units
• Staff views about the facilitators and barriers to optimized pediatric pain management

Study 3: Implementation and evaluation of the intervention

The intervention:

• Lectures and workshops for the included nurses
• Clinical supervision of the nurses

Data collection (one months after the intervention (T2), and six months after the intervention (T3))

• Questionnaire PNKAS-N (T2 and T3)
• Observational study of clinical practice (T2 and T3)
• Interview with children (T2)

Inclusion Criteria:

Survey:

• nurses working in six postoperative units for children in six university hospitals in Norway

Observational study of clinical practice:

• nurses working in six postoperative units for children in six university hospitals in Norway
• children (0-18 years) and their parents admitted to these six postoperative units for children in six university hospitals in Norway during the data collection period

Interview with children:

• children older than six years going through surgery at the time of data collection at two of six units (randomly chosen), and their parents, will be asked to participate in this study

Exclusion Criteria:

Survey and Observational study of clinical practice:

• nurses not involved in clinical work
• nurses working part-time (less than 75%)

Interview with children:

• children not admitted to the postoperative units
• children younger than 6 years of age