Journal of pediatric nursing
-
Optimal pain control in the dying child often requires aggressive opioid therapy that exceeds recommended parameters and may hasten death caused by respiratory depression. For pediatric nurses caring for the dying child, the administration of potentially life-shortening analgesia gives rise to a number of ethical issues. ⋯ If left unresolved, these issues can interfere with the nurse's ability to implement an appropriate pain regimen. To provide adequate pain control, pediatric nurses who care for dying children must accomplish the following: critically examine ethical issues and underlying principles; understand the phenomena of addiction, tolerance, and physical dependence; and identify the boundaries of acceptable nursing practice when administering potentially life-shortening analgesia to terminally ill children.
-
Review Comparative Study
Postoperative analgesic prescription and administration in a pediatric population.
This study is a replication of the classic work conducted by Eland (1974) that investigates the prescription and administration of postoperative analgesics in a pediatric population. This study was conducted to compare and contrast results over almost 20 years to determine whether any changes have occurred in analgesic administration of children in the same large midwestern teaching hospital. This study retrospectively reviewed 25 patient charts matched by age grouping and surgical diagnosis to the original sample. ⋯ The average number of doses administered was 3.3 doses per day. When examining only the first 48 postoperative hours, the average number of doses administered was 4.36 doses per day. The investigator concludes that the prescription and administration of analgesics in the pediatric population at this facility has improved dramatically over the past 18 years.
-
Infants discharged from neonatal intensive care units (NICUs) often face a long journey of chronic illness, family stresses, and financial burdens. Health care professionals involved in acute care need to be aware of the far-reaching repercussions of neonatal illness. This report presents a case study of a low-income, single mother from a rural community and her son, a neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) graduate post-extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) and post-necrotizing enterocolitis (NEC) discharged with a gastronomy tube (g-tube) and failure to thrive (FTT), from his birth to 10 months of age. Family-focused interventions aimed at improving growth and developmental delays and providing family support will be discussed.