Abstract
The distress from peripheral intravenous catheter (PIV) insertion is often the worst part of a child's hospitalization. The adverse effects of PIV insertion include patient anxiety, parent anxiety, needle-phobia, and nurse burnout. Topical anesthetics and other pain agents can improve pain associated with PIV insertion. However, nurses and providers do not always utilize them. A quality improvement project was initiated on three medical/surgical floors at a free-standing pediatric acute care facility. A nurse survey regarding the barriers and perceptions to pain agent use with PIV starts was emailed to all medical/surgical nurses. An educational intervention regarding solutions to the barriers obtained from the survey was provided via one on one education, posters, and PowerPoint presentation. The most common barrier to pain agent use was time. Pre- and post intervention chart reviews showed that patients less than age one were most likely to receive a pain agent. Patients ages one to two were least likely to receive a pain agent. There was a slight increase in pain agent use after the educational intervention that was not statistically significant.