Assessing the Effects of Educational Training Aimed to Improve Pain-reporting Reliability in Children After Surgery

Assessing the Effects of Educational Training Aimed to Improve Pain-reporting Reliability in Children After Surgery

Treating pain, just as treating other medical conditions, depends on accurate assessment of patient's condition. When assessing pain, as other subjective symptoms, the challenge is twofold because the assessment is dependent on patient's understanding and use of the scale, all the more so in children

So far, attempts to improve pain assessments have been focused on the development and refining pain scales. No emphasis has been placed on improving patient's ability to report their pain. Our purpose is to evaluate a training program designed to improve the quality of children's post-surgical pain intensity reports.

After receiving Helsinki approval, eligible children and their parents will signed informed-consent. After surgery, the children, their parents, and the department nurses will assess children's pain intensity. Immediately after the nurse assessment, parents will assess their child's pain (blindly and independently) and the children will report their pain on four different pain scales.

Children aged 8-17, hospitalized in Rambam medical-center for elective surgery will be invited to participate. Children in the experimental group will be exposed to a training program, developed for this study, aimed to teach and train how to report pain. The control group will receive the standard pre-surgical instructions.

Inclusion Criteria:

1. children at age 8-17 years;
2. absence of psychiatry, cognitive, and/or neurological disorders;
3. understand the purpose and the instructions of the study, agree to participate and parent signed inform consent.

Exclusion Criteria:

1. children suffering from Post traumatic stress disorder.