Thursday, February 28, 2008

Pediatric Nursing Technologies Helping Children Cope With Pain


Nurses are a big part of a child's treatment.



Like all nurses, pediatric nurses deal with how to help their patients cope with their pain. Because their patients are children, sometimes it is difficult to find ways of helping children cope with their distress. According to Cohen, Blount, and Panopoulos (1997), a major part of a pediatric nurse’s job in helping children cope with their pain, is teaching them and coaching them on coping behaviors. Because children get distracted so easily, a nurse can prompt a child to focus elsewhere during times of stress. One coping method is to have a child watch popular children’s cartoons while receiving treatments, such as immunizations. As the procedure is done, the children are coached and reminded by the nurse to watch the cartoon. Additionally, the pediatric patient may be asked to explain things, such as the names of the characters and what they are doing in the show (Cohen et al., 1997).




Children watch cartoons like Blue's Clues during immunizations.


Similar to the cartoon-watching coping mechanism, nurses use music and/or stories on tape to aid children in coping with their pain and distress. This afore mentioned example can allow nurses to assist the children to stay focused on what they are listening to (Noquchi, 2006). As the child is listening to the tape, there is a screen that they are also watching with the characters from the audio story. While the nurse is performing the procedure on the child, he/she asks the child which of the activities on the screen is being talked about in the story that they are listening to. Using this technique has seemed to help with children’s distress before and during the procedure the nurse performs (Noquchi, 2006).






As children listen to stories they are distracted from their pain.




Another way that nurses have helped children to cope with pain and distress is with hypnosis. For example, during a cystourethrography, nurses and parents help children to use an imaginative self-hypnosis to keep them somewhat occupied during the procedure (Butler, Symons, Henderson, Shortliffe, & Spiegel, 2005). Children and parents are instructed on how to do the self-hypnosis before they come in for the procedure, and are told to practice before they have the procedure. Although this technique of using imaginative self-hypnosis does not totally eliminate the distress felt by the child, it does reduce the distress and help with the effectiveness of the cystourethrography procedure (Butler et al., 2005).



There are also different playful ways that nurses help children to cope with pain and distress. One of these mechanisms that nurses use is to have children play with party blowers. The nurses give the child the option of playing with the party blower by blowing into it to make noise before the nurse begins giving the immunization (Bowen & Dammeyer, 1999). According to tests done, the children who have chosen to play with the party blower have experienced less distress and less pain (Bowen et al., 1999).






Party blowers are also used to help distract children during medical procedures.



Overall, nurses have found many different ways of helping children cope with their pain. While many techniques have been identified, the development of more will benefit patients in the future.




References



Bowen, AM, Dammeyer, MM (1999). Reducing children's immunization distress in a primary care setting. Journal of Pediatric Nursing, 14 (5), 206-303 [Electronic Version].

Butler, L.L., Blount, R.L., Panopoulos, G. (1997). Nurses Coaching and Cartoon Distraction: An Effective and Practical Intervention to Reduce Child, Parent, and Nurses Distress During Immunization. Journal of Pediatric Psychology, 22 (3), 355-370. Retrieved January 22, 2008, from http://jpepsy.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/reprint/22/3/355

Butler, L.D., Symons, B.K., Henderson, S.L., Shortliffe, L.D., Spiegel, D. (2005). Hypnosis reduces distress and duration of an invasive medical procedure for children. Pediatrics, 115 (1), e77-e85. Retrieved January 22, 2008, from http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/cgi/content/full/115/1/e77

Noquchi, LK (2006). The effect of music versus nonmusic on behavioral signs of distress and self-report of pain in pediatric injection patients. Journal of Musical Therapy, 43 (1), 16-38. Retrieved February 6, 2008, from http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez?Db=pubmed&Cmd=Search&Term=%22Noguchi%20LK%22%5BAuthor%5D&itool=EntrezSystem2.PEntrez.Pubmed.Pubmed_ResultsPanel.Pubmed_RVAbstractPlusDrugs1


Pictures/ Photographs




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