Parents' Participation in Managing Their Children's Postoperative Pain at Home: An Integrative Literature Review

Abstract

Objectives: This integrative review aimed to synthesize and critically evaluate the methodological quality of the evidence on parent's participation in managing their children's postoperative pain at home.

Design: Integrative review.

Data sources: To locate relevant articles, two reviewers independently searched four electronic databases systematically using predefined inclusion and exclusion criteria.

Review/analysis methods: The methodological quality of 23 eligible studies was critically appraised using published evaluation criteria. A qualitative content analysis was then conducted to synthesize findings of the studies to identify thematic trends and factors on the nature of parents' participation and ability to effectively manage their children's pain at home.

Results: Methodological quality of most of the 15 surveys was adequate, whereas shortcomings were identified in 6 of the 7 clinical trials and the 1 qualitative study that were included in this review. The three themes identified pertained to parent use of informational sources, postoperative pain medications, and nonpharmacologic pain treatment approaches. Results indicate parents lack the information they need to effectively make use of pharmacologic and nonpharmacologic pain treatment approaches.

Conclusions: There is need to improve communication between parents and health professionals before and after the child's surgery and to provide parents with specific verbal and written instructions and strategies on how to assess and manage their children's pain.