The Effect of Educational Strategies Targeted for Nurses on Pain Assessment and Management in Children: An Integrative Review

Background: Nurses play an important role in children's pain assessment and management because they spend the majority of the time with them and provide care on a 24-hour basis. However, research studies continue to report on nurses' inadequate assessment and management of children's pain, which may be partly attributed to their insufficient education in this area. Objectives: This integrative review sought to examine the effect of strategies used in educating nurses on pediatric pain assessment and management. Design: An integrative review. Data Sources: Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature, Cochrane, PubMed/Medline and Scopus. Review/Analysis Methods: Four databases were searched up to February 2018 based on a prescribed eligibility criteria. The review included 37 studies with varied methodologic quality. Results: Our findings revealed that various types of educational strategies improve nurses' knowledge, attitudes, and practice of pain assessment, management, and/or documentation. Conclusions: Developing a responsive program that includes expectations of beneficiaries, integrating it into existing facility training systems and delivering it through multidisciplinary collaboration, offers the benefit of securing sustainability of the educational gains. (C) 2019 American Society for Pain Management Nursing. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.