Paediatric Nurse Guide: How to Spot Unrelieved Pain in Children.
Identifying unrelieved pain in children is key to avoiding long and short-term health and wellness affects. Unlike adults, children cannot communicate their issues as effectively. So identifying and spotting the warning signs of unrelieved pain in children will ensure that the right treatments can be implemented before escalation of further medical and mental issues.
Paediatric Nurse Guides: Identifying Unrelieved Pain in Children
Identifying the unrelieved pain in children and putting in a plan of action ensures effective pain management and young patient care in Australia and specifically paediatric nursing comes into play with this. This can reduce prolonged hospital stays, re-admissions to hospital as well as the number of increased outpatient visits and not to mention the reduction of long-term psychological issues that can arise if left untreated.
Consequences of Unrelieved Pain in Children.
The consequences of unrelieved pain in children can lead to psychological issues and these include anxiety and stress, feelings of helplessness and or hopelessness, Insomnia, loss of appetite and in extreme circumstances self-harm. Dealing with the unrelieved pain and putting in place a treatment process to deal with this can promote the ability to deal with psychosocial problems and deter further issues arising.
Communicating with The Child.
The key factor to identify issues is to deal directly with the child and use a series of assessments to provide a comprehensive overview and how to move forward. Firstly, listening to what the child has to say, (Self-Assessment.) can bring attention to problems. Secondly by studying how the child behaves and reacts, (Behavioural Indicators) allows you to assess their reactions, and third and finally, watching for how the child’s body reacts (Physiological Indicators) will complete a full assessment of the symptoms and indications of the child’s pain.
Putting Treatment into Practice
By putting processes into practice to deal with unrelieved pain offers the child the best course of recovery, By implementing a four step process is a way of moving forward and this includes identifying the child’s pain, selecting the appropriate form of pain alleviation, the implementation of these, (Whilst monitoring the effects and side effects, evaluating the effectiveness of the treatment put in place.) Should there be little of no improvement in the child’s wellbeing then a re-assessment and repetition of this process can be implemented to further improve the child’s unrelieved pain.
In summary by putting these preventative measures in place we can not only provide a more successful way of treatment but also improve the health and wellbeing of our children.