Do children feel pain? methods of assessment of post-surgical acute pediatric pain, an excluded reality A narrative review

Abstract

Objective: To describe, through updated scientific literature, the instruments and/or scales used in the assessment of acute postoperative pain in pediatrics, in order to learn the various methodologies to staging severity and monitoring the disease response to interventions in children in the postoperative period.

Methods: This work is a theoretical-descriptive documentary research. Indexed articles were used as primary sources of information. The analysis unit were all those documents found in the databases: MedPlus, ScienceDirect, SciELO and PubMed. Inclusion criteria: studies published from 2015 to 2021.

Results: In the scientific articles selection, twenty-two publications were included according to the inclusion and exclusion criteria; it is determined that the complexity of pain assessment has multiple heterogeneous factors that influence its outcome. For this reason, special care must be taken with the correct choice of the evaluation method for acute post-surgical pain in pediatrics.

Conclusion: The pain in pediatrics assessment is one of the most complex procedures that health professionals face. For this reason, adequate knowledge of the available tools is imperative so that its application is correct and successful. Current methods must be used under specific determinants, taking into account not only the age and cognitive development of the patient, but also their emotional, socioeconomic environment and variables that are easy to determine, such as physiological and behavioral ones.