Nurses' Knowledge and Attitudes About Pain Management in Pediatric Surgical Wards: An Educational Intervention Study.

Background: Pediatric pain management is a constantly developing field. Despite extensive research, several studies have concluded that children's pain is still underestimated and undertreated. Nurses working with children have an important professional and ethical responsibility to possess up-to-date knowledge of pediatric pain management.

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to identify nurses' knowledge and attitudes regarding pain management in pediatric surgical wards and to investigate the short- and long-term effects of a tailored educational intervention.

Methods: This study has a quasi-experimental design without a control group and uses a previously validated questionnaire, the Pediatric Nurses' Knowledge and Attitudes Survey Regarding Pain-Norwegian version (PNKAS-N). Nurses in four pediatric surgical wards in one university hospital in Norway answered the survey once before and three times after a tailored educational intervention.

Results: Eighty-three nurses answered the PNKAS-N at baseline (response rate of 75%). The nurse's total PNKAS-N mean score was 27.8 (77.3%) at baseline. We identified knowledge and attitude deficits regarding items related to opioid doses, the risk of drug addiction, the risk of respiratory depression, and the choice of pain medication for children. The total PNKAS-N mean score was statistically significantly increased after the intervention, at T2 (85.2%), as compared to baseline, and this improvement was sustained at T3 (83.8%) and T4 (81.4%).

Conclusion: The tailored educational intervention had a significant effect on nurses' knowledge and attitudes about pediatric pain management.