[Survey on the nurses' awareness of postoperative pains in children in a university hospital].
BACKGROUND
Since children often have difficulty in expressing pains accurately, it is more important in child than in adult that physicians and nurses share the awareness of postoperative pains in children and provide care by paying attention to the methods of evaluating pains and analgesia.


METHODS
Awareness and current status of postoperative pains in children were surveyed by a questionnaire to nurses working at a university hospital.


RESULTS
More than 90% of nurses answered positively towards the necessity of postoperative analgesia in children. In terms of satisfaction as to postoperative analgesia, more than 80% of nurses answered that they were able to provide it "as much as they could". However, when analgesic measures that were indeed provided were asked, it turned out that the contents of analgesic methods "as much as they could" differed among wards.


CONCLUSIONS
Despite the high awareness of postoperative pains in children, it turned out that putting them into practical use was difficult in some wards of the university hospital. Since major educative institutes for nurses are university hospitals in Japan, it was thought to be important for physicians and nurses working there to try to further share the awareness of postoperative pains in children.
Warabi
Kengo
K
Department Anesthesiology, Juntendo University School of Medicine, Tokyo 113-8421.
Asano
Mineko
M
Watanabe
Asaka
A
Kakemizu
Maho
M
Aoyama
Kazuyoshi
K
Hara
Atsuko
A
Inada
Eiichi
E
D000293:Adolescent; D000698:Analgesia; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D007722:Health Knowledge, Attitudes, Practice; D006785:Hospitals, University / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D009726:Nurses / Q000523:psychology*; D010149:Postoperative Pain / Q000517:prevention & control* / Q000628:therapy*; D010372:Pediatrics; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires