Understanding caregiver judgments of infant pain: contrasts of parents, nurses and pediatricians.
BACKGROUND
Research suggests that caregivers' beliefs pertaining to infant pain and which infant pain cues are perceived to be important play an integral role in pediatric pain assessment and management.


OBJECTIVE
Following a recent quasi-experimental study reporting on caregiver background and age differences in actual infant pain judgments, the present study clarified these findings by analyzing caregivers' pain beliefs and the cues they use to make pain assessments, and by examining how the wording of belief questions influenced caregivers' responses.


METHODS
After making pain judgments based on video footage of infants between two and 18 months of age receiving immunizations, parents, nurses and pediatricians were required to respond to questionnaires regarding pain beliefs and importance of cues.


RESULTS
Parents generally differed from pediatricians. Parents tended to have less optimal beliefs regarding medicating the youngest infants, were more influenced by question wording, and reported using many more cues when judging older infants than other caregiver groups. In terms of beliefs, influence of question wording and cue use, nurses tended to fall in between both groups; they displayed similarities to both parents and pediatricians.


CONCLUSIONS
Paralleling the original findings on pain judgments, these findings suggest that parents differ from pediatricians in their pain beliefs and the cues they use to make pain judgments. Moreover, some similarities were found between parents and nurses, and between nurses and pediatricians. Finally, caution must be taken when interpreting research pertaining to beliefs about infant pain because question wording appears to influence interpretation.
Pillai Riddell
Rebecca R
RR
Department of Psychology, York University, and The Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, Ontario, Canada. rpr@yorku.ca
Horton
Rachel E
RE
Hillgrove
Jessica
J
Craig
Kenneth D
KD
D000367:Age Factors; D000704:Analysis of Variance; D017028:Caregivers / Q000523:psychology*; D016009:Chi-Square Distribution; D005260:Female; D007722:Health Knowledge, Attitudes, Practice; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D018730:Infant Behavior / Q000502:physiology*; D007600:Judgment; D008297:Male; D009726:Nurses / Q000523:psychology; D010146:Pain / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000503:physiopathology; D010147:Pain Measurement / Q000379:methods*; D010290:Parents / Q000523:psychology; D010820:Physicians / Q000523:psychology; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires