Nurses’ Perspectives on Invasive Procedural Pain Among Paediatric Patients At The Regional Hospital, Koforidua.

Abstract

Paediatric patients undergo various painful invasive procedures in paediatric settings which are not managed effectively. The study aimed to explore the perspectives of nurses about invasive procedural pain management among paediatric patients. A qualitative interpretive design was used in this study. Nurses were recruited from the paediatric units at the Regional Hospital, Koforidua and a semi-structured interview guide was used for the data collection. Saturation was achieved at the 16th participant. Data was analysed using thematic content analysis and five main themes emerged from the data. These are knowledge and process on invasive procedural pain management, attitudes of nurses towards invasive procedural pain management, subjective norms towards invasive procedural pain management, intentions to manage invasive procedural pain, and perceived control of invasive procedural pain management. The findings showed that the nurses had limited knowledge about pain assessment scales and pharmacological strategies for managing invasive procedural pain. However, most of the nurses had positive intentions towards invasive procedural pain management while few of the nurses thought that it was a waste of time and money. The nurses were also motivated to manage the pain when they believed that the parents, nurses, doctors, and the managers expected them to manage the procedural pain. Parental support and continuous professional development, and personal initiative were identified as facilitators while lack of knowledge, shortage of staff, lack of policies and facilities and cost implications were the barriers to effective procedural pain management. Nurses in the paediatric settings expressed both positive and negative perceptions about invasive procedural pain in children. There is therefore the need to make invasive procedural pain management a priority in paediatric units and also design interventions to change the nurses‟unfavourable attitudes towards invasive procedural pain management among paediatric patients.