Mothers’ Experiences of Managing their Child’s Pain Before and During Attendance at the Emergency Department

Mothers' Experiences of Managing their Child's Pain Before and During Attendance at the Emergency Department Aims and objectives: To explore mothers' experiences of managing their child's pain before and during attendance at the Emergency Department (ED). Background: Pain accounts for 50-80% of all visits to the ED. Historically paediatric pain has been poorly managed in the ED and there remains variability in practice. It is mothers who usually bring their child to the ED and as such it is important to explore their perspectives of how pain is managed. Design: Exploratory qualitative study Methodology: Semi-structured interviews were carried out with mothers (n=10) of children who have attended the ED in one hospital in the East of England during April 2015. Results: Most mothers felt able to assess their child's pain and reported attending the ED when their normal pain-relieving strategies failed following an injury. Several mothers sought advice from elsewhere before bringing their child to the ED. The advice received was usually to take their child to the ED. Mothers welcomed the professional approach to pain management in the ED and valued being kept informed about their child's care. Mothers rated the care provided in the ED as good or very good. Conclusions: Mothers attended the ED when their normal pain-relieving strategies failed. This suggests there is a need to provide additional resources to support parents in this context. Mothers often brought their child to the ED rather than their GP or other primary health care providers. The reasons for this need exploring further. Relevance to clinical practice: The results suggest that mothers need additional resources to enable them to manage their child's pain at home following an injury. The reasons mothers attend the ED rather than other health care providers needs exploring in more depth.

This is the peer reviewed version of the following article: Twycross, AM and Edmonds, J (2018) Mothers’ Experiences of Managing their Child’s Pain Before and During Attendance at the Emergency Department. Journal of Clinical Nursing. (In Press), which has been published in final form at xxxxx. This article may be used for non-commercial purposes in accordance with Wiley Terms and Conditions for Self-Archiving.