| Learning Objective #1: Understand Taiwanese children's pain experiences | |||
| Learning Objective #2: Describe how culture affects an individual's experience |
Little information was found in studying Taiwanese children's pain experiences. Because pain is cultural shaped, health care providers should not assume Taiwanese children's pain to be identical to those of children in the U.S. Thus, a qualitative descriptive study of 90 Taiwanese children was conducted to understand Taiwanese children's pain experiences. Fourteen interview questions were developed based on Hester and Barcus's (1986) pain history, Crow's (1993) children's pain perspectives interview, review of the literature and a group of content experts (four well-known nurse researchers and a child development specialist). The hospitalized children with acute pain were interviewed. Krippendorff's (1980) content analysis was used to guide the data analysis. Seven themes from the interview data were presented, including definition of pain, quality of pain, previous pain experiences, pain expectation, pain acceptance and causes of pain as well as meaning of pain. Surprisingly, the results of this study revealed few differences in the experiences and meanings of pain. Most results are consistent with the studies done in the U.S. Differences are minor and probably related to sample sizes and methodology of the studies. How culture affects children's pain experiences remains unclear.
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