A randomized trial of a pain education booklet: Effects on parents' attitudes and postoperative pain management

This study was a randomized trial evaluating the effects of educating parents with the booklet Pain, Pain Go Away: Helping Children With Pain on their attitudes and management of their children's postoperative pain. Eighty-two parents of children undergoing day surgeries were randomly assigned to a pain education group (n = 27), a pain assessment control group (n = 28), or a no pain education control group (n = 27). Parents in the pain education group had fewer concerns about the use of acetaminophen for children compared to the other two groups. Parents in the pain education group administered more doses of medication on the 3rd day following surgery than the other two groups; there were no group differences in medication dosages on either of the first 2 days following surgery. There were no group differences in parents' pain assessments on any of the 3 days following surgery. Fewer parental concerns about children's pain medications and higher parental pain assessments were related to higher numbers of doses of medication administered. These results are discussed with respect to the need for developing further interventions to educate parents about children's pain.