Assessment of Postoperative Pain in Infant

Pain is a subjective as well as personal experience, and there are no objective tests exist to measure it. Assessment is the initial step of the nursing process; therefore, it is essential to assess pain accurately among infants in the postoperative environment to have better pain management. Nurses are the health practitioners in the front line to understand the suffering and pain of the patients, giving them greater responsibility to perform on their observations. Hence, the purpose of the thesis is to provide knowledge on the pain assessment methods in infants in the postoperative environment with a research question of how nurses assess postoperative pain in infants. The search for the data was conducted in January 2019. During the thesis process, an inductive qualitative content analysis was chosen to gain updated facts and data. The research methodology is followed by the review of literature, with inductive qualitative data analysis. Four databases searched for data retrieval. These included; Laurea FINNA, ProQuest Central, Science direct, and Sage premier. A total number of 6 articles from the year 2015-2019 were selected. Four main themes as the methods of assessment of postoperative pain in infants were derived from the data analyzed which include; performing history taking through proxy reporting, identifying other potential causes of pain, observing infant’s pain responses and using appropriate pain assessment tools. In a nutshell, the imparted knowledge from the thesis will surely provide knowledge on assessment methods among the health care professionals working with infants in the postoperative environment through assisting them in making decisions in clinical sectors. The knowledge of assessment helps to make better planning and interventions in the nursing career. Since only a few academic databases were used in data collection, recommendations are aimed at health care professionals in general for furthermore research regarding the topic which could lead to even more effective pain assessment in infants in the postoperative department