Pain management nursing : official journal of the American Society of Pain Management Nurses
-
Randomized Controlled Trial
A randomized controlled trial of the effectiveness of educating parents about distraction to decrease postoperative pain in children at home after tonsillectomy.
Today, parents are more involved with postoperative pain management, because children are discharged as early as possible after surgery. The purpose of this randomized controlled trial was to determine the effectiveness of educating parents to provide distraction in addition to pharmacologic pain management in decreasing postoperative pain at home for children ages 3 to 7 years. Ninety-three children aged 3-7 years having tonsillectomy at Landspitali, The National University Hospital of Iceland, and their parents were randomized to one of two intervention groups. ⋯ There was no difference in pain intensity between the groups using RM-ANCOVA. However, there was association between pain intensity in the morning on postoperative day 1 and follow-up pain intensity (p < .001). The results from this study support the importance of educating parents of children having tonsillectomy about distraction in addition to educating them about pain medication management.