Journal of child health care : for professionals working with children in the hospital and community
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J Child Health Care · Sep 2015
Parental attitudes to children's pain and analgesic drugs in the United Kingdom.
Many children experience treatable moderate to severe pain following surgery. Increasingly, children undergo surgery as day cases, and, as such, parents are more likely to be responsible for managing pain post-operatively. Research in the United States and Finland has found parents fear the side effects of analgesics; think they are addictive; and that children should receive as little analgesia as possible. ⋯ A convenience sample of parents (n = 108) at one hospital in South West London completed the Parental Pain Expression Perceptions and the Medication Attitudes Questionnaires. Although many parents have a good understanding of the ways in which children express pain, a substantial proportion of parents hold misconceptions regarding how children express pain and concerns in relation to analgesic drugs. This may impact on the quality of the pain management provided to children post-operatively and needs taking into account when preparing parents in this context.
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J Child Health Care · Sep 2015
My dad's a 'barbie' man and my mum's the cooking girl: Boys and the social construction of food and nutrition.
Academics from a variety of disciplines claim that gender has an influence on men's and women's food choices and portion sizes at mealtime and snack time. While these socially constructed norms present health-related implications for both men and women, it is arguable that men have a greater risk of problems associated with overweight as a consequence of gendered food choices and dietary practices. ⋯ The voices of boys provide the opportunity to understand how gendered food choices, among males, emerge in contemporary Western culture. Such research can also potentially play a role in developing strategies to assist boys in making healthy food selection, which will ultimately assist their food-related health literacy as they move towards adolescence and adulthood.