Development and testing of a pediatric pain management sheet.

A pediatric pain flow sheet was developed to provide health professionals with a simple means of documenting the child's pain experience. This instrument was pretested and used in a research study to ascertain whether its use would make any difference to the child's postoperative pain intensity and management. Results indicated that nurses who implemented the flow sheet had patients who were in less pain, were assessed more frequently and received more narcotic analgesics.