Abstract
Purpose: Increase parents’ knowledge on different aspects of post-operative pain following cardiac surgery including expectations, recognition, impact, parental role, and management of pain.|Background: Post-operative pain continues to be a significant problem for pediatric patients following cardiac surgery. Patient and parent knowledge deficits regarding treatment of pain and pain management options have been identified as a barrier to adequate pain management. Education is imperative to breaking down these barriers of pain management.|Sample/Setting: Study participants include parent-patient dyads that meet the requirements based on the defined inclusion and exclusion criteria. The study takes place on a 23-bed cardiac medical-surgical unit in a mid-western, free-standing children’s hospital with a pediatric cardiac surgery program.|Methods: A Quality Improvement study that utilizes a pre-post intervention design to evaluate the effectiveness of post-operative pain education on parental knowledge and patient pain intensity. Qualitative data is being collected and analyzed from pre- and post-intervention surveys, as well as, documented patient pain scores before and after education.|Results: When comparing pre- and post-intervention surveys, the average scores for parental knowledge increased when asked about experiencing pain after surgery, the ability to recognize signs of pain in their child, medications and non-pharmacologic options used to treat pain, the impact of pain on recovery, the parents’ role in pain management, and their child being pain-free upon discharge. The average scores for parental knowledge were unchanged when asked about the impact of pain on discharge and parents’ comfort in asking the nurse for pain medications.
Conclusion: Overall, parents’ knowledge and understanding of post-operative pain expectations and management increased for the majority of topics, while patients’ pain intensity decreased. Future implications for this study and intervention would be to survey participants and implement the intervention prior to surgery to better analyze the impact on patients’ pain intensity.