Poor communication and knowledge deficits: obstacles to effective management of children's postoperative pain.
OBJECTIVE
To explore the perceptions of nurses and parents of the management of postoperative pain in children. This paper focuses on issues of knowledge and communication.


BACKGROUND
Nurses are the key health care professionals with responsibility for managing children's pain, however, nurses are not well supported educationally to manage the level of responsibility.


RESULTS
Using matched interviews between 20 parents and 20 nurses many issues arose relating to the nurse/parent communication process. It was also clear that despite nurses' knowledge of pain management being deficient, they had expectations that required parents to have a level of knowledge they did not possess.


CONCLUSIONS
The findings suggest that nurses' poor communication with parents and nurses' knowledge deficits in relation to children's pain management create obstacles to effective pain management. These obstacles need to be addressed in order to improve the management of children's pain through better education of nurses and two way communication with parents.
Simons
Joan
J
Children's Pain Research Centre, Institute of Child Health, London [corrected]. joan.simons@tvu.ac.uk
Roberson
Elaine
E
D001291:Attitude of Health Personnel; D001294:Attitude to Health; D002648:Child; D002673:Child, Hospitalized / Q000523:psychology; D003142:Communication; D004522:Educational Status; D007722:Health Knowledge, Attitudes, Practice; D006801:Humans; D019359:Knowledge; D020380:Needs Assessment; D015404:Nursing Methodology Research; D009741:Nursing Staff, Hospital / Q000193:education / Q000523:psychology*; D010149:Postoperative Pain / Q000517:prevention & control* / Q000523:psychology; D010290:Parents / Q000193:education / Q000523:psychology*; D011368:Professional-Family Relations; D002666:Psychology, Child; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D006113:United Kingdom