Experience of Registered Nurses of Postoperative Pain Assessment Using Objective Measures among Children at Effia Nkwanta Regional Hospital in Ghana

Abstract

Introduction Surgical operations are inevitable in alleviating certain disease conditions, however, surgical procedures are associated with pain. Pain is defined as "an unpleasant sensory and emotional experience associated with actual or potential tissue damage or described in terms of such damage". 1 Postoperative pain refers to the pain experienced after surgery. 2 Studies show that children feel pain just like the adult population. 3-5 Every individual is entitled to pain management. Pain assessment must first be performed before treatment commences. 6-9 Pain assessment involves the use of subjective and objective measures and the subjective measures involve the use of self-reports where patients verbalize or describe their pain. Objective measures comprising behavioural and physiological measures are commonly used to assess children's pain. Behavioural measures involve observing how a child behaves in response to pain such as facial expressions, crying, body postures and movements. 10 Physiological measures include assessment of heart rate, blood pressure, respiration, oxygen saturation, palmer sweating and temperature. 11 For pain, assessment to be practical, and consistent pain assessment tools and guidelines are used. Some of the common pain assessment tools used among children include Faces Pain Scale-Revised (FPS-R), the Wong-Baker Faces Scale and the Oucher Scale, the Face, Legs, Activity, Cry and Consolability (FLACC), the Children's Hospital of Eastern Ontario Pain Scale (CHEOPS), the Toddler-Preschooler Postoperative Pain Scale (TPPPS), and the Parents' Postoperative Pain Rating Scale (PPPRS). It has been established that inadequate assessment of post-operative pain leads to inadequate management which can lead to severe complications such as delayed wound healing, deep vein thrombosis, atelectasis, pneumonia and even death. 12-15 Despite the knowledge

Experiences of Registered Nurses’ in Assessing Postoperative Pain among Children: Exploring the Challenges in Effia Nkwanta Regional Hospital, Ghana

“…The aspect of pain concerned in these studies is mostly on knowledge among health professionals [20,22,23] and barriers related to pain assessment among children [24]. Almost all the researches were conducted in the Ashanti Region and Greater Accra Region of Ghana [21,23,24] with a study in the Western Region of Ghana [25]. Thus, it is clear that within the Ghanaian setting, knowledge gaps exist in pain assessment concerning research among the paediatric population (0-3 years) and, most specifically, the Western Region part of the country.…”

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“…The aspect of pain concerned in these studies is mostly on knowledge among health professionals [20,22,23] and barriers related to pain assessment among children [24]. Almost all the researches were conducted in the Ashanti Region and Greater Accra Region of Ghana [21,23,24] with a study in the Western Region of Ghana [25]. Thus, it is clear that within the Ghanaian setting, knowledge gaps exist in pain assessment concerning research among the paediatric population (0-3 years) and, most specifically, the Western Region part of the country.…”