Teaching parents how to comfort their children during common medical procedures.

Pediatric procedural pain

“…Be honest. Parental involvement 71,154 Ask the parents how much distress they expect from the child. Allow parents to remain present.…”

Incorporating psychological approaches into routine paediatric venepuncture

“…48 Equally, there is emerging evidence that children recently diagnosed with chronic illness report higher pain and fear levels than those with a longer history of illness. 51 Yet for children who have experienced regular or frequent venepuncture in familiar clinical settings, exposure to procedural "cues" (for example, seeing medical equipment, blood samples from other patients, or hearing other children in distress), can also heighten anxiety unnecessarily.…”

“…4 5 49 Once "prepared", parents need to be encouraged to stay and given active roles to take, 48 the exception being when they themselves have needle fears or show high levels of distress. 34 This needs to be discussed as openly as possible in order to avoid causing blame or guilt.…”

Predicting Parental Attitudes Toward the Helpfulness of Postoperative Analgesic Medication

“…This 23-item checklist was created by Lilley (2000) after a review of the literature that dealt with nonpharmacological alternatives to pain management (Bauchner, Vinci, & May, 1994;Beyer, Clegg, Foster, & Hester, 1992;Denyes, Neuman, & Villareuel, 1991;McCready, MacDavitt, & O'Sullivan, 1991;McGrath, Finley, & Ritchie, 1994;Neff & Douthit, 1990;Pederson & Harbaugh, 1995). On a 5-point scale ranging from 1 (never) to 5 (more than once an hour), parents rated the frequency of their use of pain-relieving behaviors aside from use of medication.…”