Nurse and Parent Training in Postoperative Stress

University Of California-Irvine, Irvine CA

Investigators

Linked publications & trials

Abstract

? DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): A majority of children who recover from surgery suffer from pain in the post-anesthesia care unit (PACU) and upon arriving home. Poorly treated postoperative pain is detrimental due to impacts on children's postoperative behavioral and clinical recovery and subsequent pain and medical care. Accordingly, it is important to develop methods that will alleviate child pain in the postoperative environment. In a previously funded NICHD grant, specific nurse and parent behaviors that influence children's postoperative pain were identified. Building on this line of research, the overall goal of this F31 application is to develop and test the Nurse and Parent Training in Postoperative Stress (N/P-TIPS). The first goal of this study is to develop an intervention which will include a training program to teach PACU nurses to increase behaviors that alleviate child pain and decrease behaviors that elicit child pain and teach nurses how to train parents to alter their own behaviors in a similar way. The second aim of this study is to conduct a formative evaluation to examine the feasibility and acceptability of this newly developed intervention in a busy surgery center. We will revise the intervention based on healthcare provider feedback. The third objective of this study is to conduct some preliminary testing of the intervention's ability to change parent and nurse behaviors leading to decreases in child postoperative pain. This application will subsequently lead to a large-scale, randomized controlled trial of the effectiveness of the newly developed intervention (R01 NIH application).