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The Problem of Pediatric Pain

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Handbook of Diversity Issues in Health Psychology

Part of the book series: The Plenum Series in Culture and Health ((PSCH))

Abstract

The management of pain in children has lagged far behind advances in other areas of medical achievement. In 1968, physicians Swafford and Allen stated, “Pediatric patients seldom need relief of pain after general surgery. They tolerate discomfort well” (p. 133) and reported that during a 4-month period, 96% of the postoperative pediatric patients in their intensive care unit did not receive any analgesics for pain. As recently as the 1980s and 1990s, many infants and children were not receiving any analgesia during and after major surgery (Anand, Brown, Bloom, & Aynsley-Green, 1985). Indeed, postoperative children and those with disease-related pain frequently received no analgesic medication at all (Gauntlet, 1987). When compared with adults undergoing similar surgeries, infants and children received fewer doses and smaller amounts of analgesic medication per kilogram of body weight (Beyer, Ashley, Russell, & DeGood, 1983; Eland & Anderson, 1977; Schechter, Allen, & Hansen, 1986). The undertreatment of children’s pain is still routine and is striking considering pervasive evidence of children’s experience of physiological, behavioral, and emotional effects of pain.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Departments of Nursing and Pediatric Surgery, Lucile Salter Packard Children’s Hospital at Stanford, Palo Alto, California, 94304

    Betty R. Kasson

  2. Departments of Nursing and Pain Management, Lucile Salter Packard Children’s Hospital at Stanford, Palo Alto, California, 94304

    Sandra K. Sentivany

  3. Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, California, 94305

    Pamela M. Kato

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  1. Betty R. Kasson
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  2. Sandra K. Sentivany
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  3. Pamela M. Kato
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Stanford University, Stanford, California

    Pamela M. Kato  & Traci Mann  & 

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© 1996 Plenum Press, New York

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Kasson, B.R., Sentivany, S.K., Kato, P.M. (1996). The Problem of Pediatric Pain. In: Kato, P.M., Mann, T. (eds) Handbook of Diversity Issues in Health Psychology. The Plenum Series in Culture and Health. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-585-27572-7_6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-585-27572-7_6

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