Nurses' Provision of Guidance to Parents on Non-Pharmacological Pain Relief Methods: An Educational Intervention Study

Wednesday, July 13, 2011: 1:45 PM

Hong-Gu He, PhD
Alice Lee Centre for Nursing Studies, Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, National University of Singapore, Singapore, Singapore

Learning Objective 1: 1. The learner will be able to know what kind of pain relief methods nurses guided parents to use for their children.

Learning Objective 2: 2.The learner will learn how to conduct an education intervention to nurses and how to analyse and interpret the pre- and post- test data.

Purpose:  To examine Singapore nurses’ provision of guidance to parents on the use of non-pharmacological methods for children’s postoperative pain relief pre- and post-educational intervention.

Methods: This was a pre- and post-intervention questionnaire survey study. Data were collected from convenience samples of 134 and 112 pediatric nurses respectively, before and after an educational intervention at two public hospitals in Singapore. The intervention was conducted immediately after the first survey and three months before the second survey. Descriptive statistics, chi-square test and Fischer’s Exact test were used to analyse the data.

Results: Before the intervention, more than 75% of nurses always taught parents to use methods of breathing technique, relaxation, positioning, comforting/reassurance, helping with activities of daily living, creating a comfortable environment, as well as providing some cognitive information. After the intervention more than 75% of nurses always taught parents to use methods of touch, presence and distraction besides the above methods. While nurses’ provision of instruction to parents on all non-pharmacological methods and most preparatory information has increased, statistically significant increases were found only in the instruction of massage (p = 0.003) and positive reinforcement (p = 0.025).

Conclusion: The educational intervention had a positive impact on nurses’ provision of guidance to parents on the use of non-pharmacological methods for their child's postoperative pain relief.  There is a need for pediatric nurses to increase the provision of instruction on the use of less frequently used methods such as imagery and some physical methods to parents. Continuing education in pain management can be provided to nurses in order to equip them with knowledge in increasing the provision of guidance to parents regarding their child's postoperative pain relief.