Website helps parents manage postop pain
Executive Summary
Once a child goes home after surgery, parents are left with little guidance on how to best help their children cope with pain.
• The website My Child is in Pain was created for parents of children ages 2-6 who want to know how to help manage their child’s postoperative pain.
• The website, which was created with the chair of Family Health Care Nursing at the University of California, San Francisco’s School of Nursing, is located at http://mychildisinpain.org.uk.
When a young child has surgery, parents rely on doctors and nurses for advice on how to prepare and support children during the procedure and immediately afterward. But once that child gets home, parents are left with little guidance on how to best help their children cope with pain.
A new website aims to fill that information gap and give parents the framework for how to be more effective caregivers for children after surgery.
The website My Child is in Pain (http://mychildisinpain.org.uk) was created with Linda Franck, RN, PhD, chair of Family Health Care Nursing at the University of California, San Francisco’s School of Nursing. It was created for parents of children ages 2-6 who want to know how to help manage their child’s postoperative pain.
"There are very few formal resources for parents to learn how to tell if their child is in pain and what they can do to relieve it," said Franck.
More than 80% of the more than 3 million children’s surgeries in the United States are performed on an outpatient basis, which leaves parents to manage postoperative pain at home. But returning home can be scary when parents aren’t confident about how to determine if their child is in pain, and children aren’t equipped with the language skills to fully articulate how they are feeling.
Franck’s research has shown that more than 90% of children have pain two days after surgery and as many as 25% have pain four weeks after. Children with postoperative pain also were more likely to have problematic behaviors such as not sleeping, eating poorly, and being very anxious.
"Parents are not getting enough information or feeling comfortable using the information that’s out there to manage pain at home," said Franck. "It became clear we needed to put together another resource using the best research evidence available and lots of parent input so that it was practical and useful for parents."
Franck has dedicated her career to pioneering pain assessment and management techniques for acutely and chronically ill infants and children. Her research highlights the information needs of parents when their children are in pain and suggests innovative strategies for enhancing the partnership between parents and professionals to ensure children receive optimal pain care after they’ve had a surgery procedure.
"When a child’s pain is well-managed, he or she usually recovers more quickly," said Franck. "Simple comfort techniques can be very effective. Gently rocking and stroking their child can be soothing and help their child to relax, and when a child is relaxed and calm, it can help the pain go away. Also, letting their child make some decisions can help them feel less anxious and more in control."
The project team was based in the United Kingdom and led by Bernie Carter, PhD, from the School of Health at the University of Central Lancashire in Preston, England, and including Lucy Bray, PhD, from Edge Hill University in Ormskirk, Lancashire, and Nic Blackwell, PhD, from OCB Media, Leicester.
