Comparisons of pain ratings from postoperative children, their mothers, and their nurses.

PURPOSE

To identify whether nurses and mothers of pediatric patients accurately assess the child's pain intensity as determined by the child.

METHOD

A descriptive correlational design examined the perception of pain from a nonrandom convenience sample of 20 postoperative school-aged children, their mothers, and their nurses. A 100 mm visual analogue scale was completed by all participants at 3 separate observations. Pearson's Product Moment Correlation was used to analyze relationships between the dyads.

FINDINGS

The mother/child dyad showed significant relationships at observations 1 and 2; these correlations were higher than other correlations at each observation. There were significant relationships for the child/nurse dyad at observations 1 and 2, and for the mother/nurse dyad at observation 1.

CONCLUSIONS

Mothers may be a valuable source of information in assessing their child's pain. The use of pain assessment tools may need to be examined and incorporated into nurses' practice, and assessments of children's pain may need to integrate more data pertaining to developmental level.