Background

Postoperative pain has adverse effects on children after urology treatment, including sleep disturbance, incision dehiscence, bleeding, and delayed recovery. Parents, as the most direct caregivers of children, can make accurate assessments of children´s personal behaviors and responses, which is very important for the management of postoperative pain in children.

Purpose

The purpose of the current study was to develop a Parent Participation in Postoperative Pain Management Program for children in a urology ward and to evaluate its effects on children's postoperative pain scores and other outcome indicators.

Design

This research comprised two phases. The first phase was the development of a Parent Participation in Postoperative Pain Management Program. The second phase was a randomized controlled trial between two groups, and was carried out in a 45-bed inpatient urology ward of a tertiary children's hospital in China. In the trial, 211 children and their parents were randomly selected as a control group between July 1 and August 15, 2019, and 202 children and their parents were randomly selected as an intervention group between August 16 and September 15, 2019.

Methods

Following the framework and methods of the Evidence-based Continuous Quality Improvement Model developed at Fudan University Evidence-Based Nursing Center, we systematically gathered evidence regarding parental involvement in postoperative pain management in children to construct the program. To evaluate the program's effectiveness, the control group performed routine postoperative pain management, while the intervention group underwent the Parent Participation in Postoperative Pain Management Program. The management period was during hospitalization, and generally ranged 3–7 days. The Statistical Table of Pain Assessment for Children after Urology was employed by researchers.

Findings

The results revealed no significant differences in demographic characteristics between the two groups of children and their parents. Children's pain scores during dressing removal (Z = −3.108, p = 0.002), at discharge (Z = −2.185, p = 0.029) and during catheter removal (Z = −6.553, p = 0.000) were significantly lower in the intervention group compared with the control group.

Conclusions and clinical relevance

The Parent Participation in Postoperative Pain Management Program was found to be effective for alleviating postoperative pain scores among children, and provided useful information regarding postoperative pain management in children involving four aspects of parental involvement: cognition, guidance, documentation and support.