It is stated that children’s' understanding of pain and their capability to communicate this understanding is dependent on their developmental level, and the nature of their prior pain experiences (Ljusegren, 2011), thus, it is the role of the healthcare provider to manage paediatric pain by first conducting a thorough pain assessment that would inform the planning, intervention, and evaluation process. Literature reported that each year 1.5 million children undergo surgery, and in 20% of cases, because of inadequate pain relief, the pain becomes chronic (Zeltzer and Schlank, 2005), and untreated chronic paediatric pain predisposes the child to experience the continuation of pain, and the development of new forms of chronic pain in adulthood (Friedrichsdorf et al. 2016; Stevens et al. 2012; Zhu et al. 2012). Several studies have reported that healthcare providers’ lack of knowledge about paediatric pain management has been and continues to be a major hindrance to the promotion of health in children experiencing pain (Goodrich, 2006; Jin, 2015; Kizza et al., 2016). Seemingly, it appears that nursing students nearing graduation exhibited lack of competence in pain management (Gadallah, Hassan & Shargawy, 2017; Laprise,2016; Latchman, 2014; Omari 2016), yet nurses’ competency in managing pain is considered to be linked to a strong preparedness of nursing students with the adequate education to deal with pain in their clinical practice. Nurse educators and preceptors are called to significantly contribute to addressing the issue of pain management by facilitating skills development of the next generation of nurses. In Rwanda, perceived capacity enhancement needs for nurse educators and preceptors to facilitate students developing skills for paediatric pain management have not been evaluated. This presentation will re-examine a study which seeks to assess the capacity of nurse educators and preceptors to facilitate nursing students’ competency acquisition for paediatric pain management in Rwanda.
Methods:
This study is ongoing and the researcher has started collecting data. An exploratory qualitative approach will be used. The researcher is using a semi-structured interview guide to collect data from nurse educators and preceptors about their capacity to facilitate nursing students in skills development on paediatric pain management. Sixteen (16) individual interviews will be conducted including 8 with nurse educators and 8 with preceptors but can be less or more than that until data saturation is reached. In addition, two (2) focus group discussions with nursing students (10 for each FGD) who have completed the topic of paediatric pain management will be carried out. Guest, Namey & McKenna (2017) stated that two to three focus groups allowed to discover more than 80% of themes. NVivo10, a data management software, will be used to analyse the data. The graduate student researcher will transcribe audio-recorded data and then conduct a qualitative content analysis of the transcribed data to illuminate categories and themes.
Results: this study is ongoing and data are being collected. Preliminary results will be presented at the conference.
Conclusion:
This study is part ( phase one) of a PhD research project, and findings of this study would inform the development of a framework that can be used by academic and practice –based administrators to further enhance the capacity of nurse educators’ and preceptors’ abilities to facilitate paediatric pain management with nursing students.