Pediatric nursing
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Complete intravenous (IV) drug administration to a pediatric patient is an important nursing intervention. Verification of the amount of flush solution that is necessary to deliver > 95% of an IV medication to the patient was the goal of a laboratory demonstration and a clinical study. In the laboratory, it was determined that three times the volume of the dead space of the IV tubing was the required volume needed to flush dye from IV administration sets. ⋯ Samples were collected from the IV tubing and analyzed to measure the concentration of tobramycin in the tubing. All three resulted in administration of > 95% of the medication. A nursing procedure was written to standardize the administration of IV medications to pediatric patients using two times the volume of the dead space of the IV tubing as the flush volume.
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Comparative Study
FLACC Behavioral Pain Assessment Scale: a comparison with the child's self-report.
The purpose of this study was to further test the validity of the Faces, Legs, Activity, Cry and Consolability (FLACC) Behavioral Pain Assessment Scale for use with children. Thirty children aged 3-7 years (5.01 +/- 1.44) who had undergone a variety of surgical procedures were observed and assessed for pain intensity at 20 + 2 hours after surgery. ⋯ There were significant and positive correlations between the FLACC and FACES scores for the entire sample and for the scores of children 5-7 years of age, but not for children < age 5. These findings provide additional support for the construct validity of the FLACC Pain Assessment Tool.
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To test the validity of the Faces, Legs, Activity, Cry and Consolability (FLACC) pain assessment tool by measuring changes in scores in response to analgesics. ⋯ The FLACC pain assessment tool is appropriate for preverbal children in pain from surgery, trauma, cancer, or other disease processes. The results support pediatric nurses' clinical judgment to determine analgesic choice rather than providing distinct FLACC scores to guide analgesic selection.