Judith Middleton1, Judy Peters1, Richard Howard1
1) United Kingdom
The aim of this study was to evaluate the current use of Nurse-Controlled Analgesia (NCA) in our hospital for the provision of intravenous (IV) opioids for pain management in children and to examine the potential need for the introduction of Parent/Nurse-Controlled Analgesia (P/NCA). It has been suggested that the P/NCA technique has the potential benefits to parents and their children of more prompt administration of boluses along with enhanced parental involvement and satisfaction.
The views of parents whose children had received NCA (n=30) and the nurses caring for children on NCA (n=97) were collected using questionnaires over a four week period and analysed using a combination of descriptive and inferential statistics.
The results did not provide strong evidence of a need for P/NCA as parents showed high levels of satisfaction with the pain management provided by NCA, good promptness of bolus administration and good levels of parental involvement. However 60% of parents suggested that they would like to be trained to use P/NCA if it were available. Parents suggested that with P/NCA they would be able to give their child boluses quicker when needed without having to wait for a nurse and that they are better able to recognise when their child is in pain than the nurses. Other parents expressed that they would not want the responsibility of P/NCA and that it was best left to the professionals. The recommendation was that the use of P/NCA should be considered only in specific cases where there is an identifiable need.
