Parents' perceptions of their 1-6-year-old children's pain.
BACKGROUND
Parents' perceptions of children's pain may have influence on how children's postoperative pain is alleviated at home after discharge from hospital.


OBJECTIVE
To describe parents' perceptions of 1-6-year-old children's pain.


METHODS
Mothers (N=201) and fathers (N=114) whose child had undergone a day surgery in 10 Finnish central hospitals between October 2000 and September 2001 filled in a questionnaire including statements of pain perceptions, a Visual Analogue Scale to assess children's pain intensity and Parents' Postoperative Pain Measure (PPPM) to measure children's pain behaviours.


RESULTS
Most of the parents suggested that adults have the responsibility to alleviate child's pain and that alleviation of child's postoperative pain prevents the child's fears during future visits in child welfare clinic. However, majority of parents described that postoperative pain decreases every day or that pain is always a part of surgery. Differences in parents' perceptions were found by both parents' and children's background variables. Parents' perceptions of children's pain were related to children's pain intensity and pain behaviours after surgery.


CONCLUSIONS
Parents' perceptions of children's pain were related to children's pain after surgery at home. Adequate information of children's pain should be provided to the parents before discharge to promote children's pain alleviation at home. Special attention should be paid on parents' expectations of boys' higher pain tolerance.
Department of Nursing Science, University of Kuopio, P.O. Box 1627, 70211 Kuopio, Finland. paivi.kankkunen@uku.fi
Päivi M
PM
Kankkunen
Katri M
KM
Vehviläinen-Julkunen
Anna-Maija K
AM
Pietilä
Pirjo M
PM
Halonen
D000328:Adult; D002675:Child, Preschool; D005260:Female; D005387:Finland; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D008297:Male; D010147:Pain Measurement; D010149:Postoperative Pain / Q000188:drug therapy / Q000534:rehabilitation / Q000628:therapy; D010287:Parent-Child Relations; D016487:Parenting / Q000523:psychology*; D010290:Parents / Q000523:psychology*; D012107:Research Design; D012737:Sex Factors; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires