Carla Gonçalves Dias1, Mavilde da Luz Gonçalves Pedreira1, Maria Gaby de Rivero Gutierrez1
1) Brazil
Background and aims: Pain management has evolved in recent decades. However, it remains a major challenge for pediatric oncology nurses. The study aim was to analyze the nursing practices for pain management in children and adolescents with cancer.
Methods: Descriptive and cross-sectional study conducted at a pediatric oncology institution. The three-phase study consisted of data collection tool development, apparent validation and its application to nursing professionals.
Results: The final four-version tool had its content and apparent validity evaluated by experts, reaching 83.3% of agreement. It was composed of 72 questions for nursing professionals, 48 for patients and 41 for family members; all based on the ChildKind International Principles. The nursing professionals median age was 36 years; all nurses were female and seven nurse technicians were male (p= 0.005). The professionals’ working experience was 11 years, with no difference between the two groups. The nurses’ majority had a pediatric specialty, and eight nurse technicians were undergraduate nursing students. There was no median scores difference between both groups in four out of the five principles. The Protocols principle was correlated with the number of years of professional nursing in pediatrics (p= 0.0039). Regarding association among the four principles, Policy was correlated to Education (p= 0.049), to Pain Assessment (p= 0.008) and to Protocols (p= 0.001). Education was also correlated to Pain Assessment (p= 0.009) and to Protocols (p= 0.004). Pain Assessment was correlated to Protocols (p< 0.0001). The nursing professionals survey performance was satisfactory regarding Policy, Education and Pain Assessment principles. However, it was unsatisfactory regarding Protocols principle.
Conclusion: Both nursing professionals categories presented satisfactory general performances to the pain management survey. The institutional nursing practices were not completely in accordance to the CKI principles. Even so, they were not uniformly and systematically applied. These findings provide essential baseline evidence for further institutional improvement on pain management policies.
