Theme: Nursing education, management and leadership.
Introduction: Successful pain management contributes to high-quality postoperative care.
Objective: To estimate the intensity of postoperative pain in children after an educational intervention.
Method: Surgical ward nurses after educational intervention recorded 146 children (0-16 years) postoperative pain scores, applying FLACC, FACES, NRS according to child's age during December 2012 to March 2014.
Results: The mean values of children's pain scores at the reception, 24h and 48h after surgery was 0,99 ± 1,68, 0,6 ± 1,43 and 0,13 ± 0,79 respectively. The median pain scores for the 1st and 2nd 24-hour seemed to correlate with the duration of surgery (p = 0.048). Only 20% of cases applied some form of non-pharmacological pain method that was associated with the child's age (p = 0,001).
Discussion: Special care should be taken about using non-pharmacological pain control methods.
Conclusions: Postoperative pain management programs contribute to effective deal.
Keywords: Educational intervention; paediatric pain; post-operative pain management..