Assessment of pain and agitation in critically ill infants.

Details

Serval ID
serval:BIB_03F849136172
Type
Article: article from journal or magazin.
Collection
Publications
Title
Assessment of pain and agitation in critically ill infants.
Journal
Australian Critical Care
Author(s)
Ramelet A.S.
ISSN
1036-7314 (Print)
ISSN-L
1036-7314
Publication state
Published
Issued date
1999
Volume
12
Number
3
Pages
92-96
Language
english
Notes
Publication types: Journal Article
Publication Status: ppublish
Abstract
Critically ill infants are subjected to many painful experiences that, if inadequately treated, can have severe physiological and psychological consequences. Optimal management of pain relies on the adequacy of nurses' assessment; this, however, is complicated by another common condition, agitation. A multidimensional assessment is therefore necessary to adequately identify pain and agitation. The aim of this descriptive study was to identify the cues that nurses caring for critically ill infants use to assess pain and agitation. A questionnaire, developed from the literature, was distributed to all registered nurses (85) working in the neonatal and paediatric intensive care units of an Australian teaching hospital. Questionnaires were completed by 41 nurses (a 57 per cent response rate). Results revealed that, except for diagnosis, there were no significant differences between the cues participants used to assess pain and those to assess agitation. Nurses used numerous cues from various sources: most importantly, their own judgement (99 per cent); the parents' judgement (90 per cent); the infant's environment; documentation (78 per cent), and the infant's cues (70 per cent). These findings demonstrate the relevance of the nurse's role in assessment of pain and agitation in critically ill infants. Nurses used cues specific to the critically ill rather than the less sick infant. Results of this study also show the difficulty of differentiating between pain and agitation. Further research on ways of distinguishing between the construct of pain and agitation needs to be undertaken.
Keywords
Critical Illness/nursing, Cues, Health Knowledge, Attitudes, Practice, Humans, Infant, Newborn, Intensive Care, Neonatal/methods, Neonatal Nursing/methods, Nursing Assessment/methods, Nursing Evaluation Research, Nursing Staff, Hospital/education, Nursing Staff, Hospital/psychology, Pain/diagnosis, Pain/nursing, Pain Measurement/methods, Pain Measurement/nursing, Psychomotor Agitation/diagnosis, Psychomotor Agitation/nursing, Questionnaires
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Create date
06/02/2013 18:55
Last modification date
20/08/2019 12:25
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