Pain assessment for newborns by nursing team: a sedimented practice assistance?

Abstract

Aim: to analyze nursing practice concerning pain assessment of newborns admitted to a Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU). Methods: descriptive study in a qualitative approach, developed with 22 nursing professionals at a Neonatal Intensive Care Unit in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. It was used a semi-structured interview and data was submitted to a Content Analysis. Results: the majority of the interviewees were women, aged between 34-55 years, with levels of schooling as undergraduate and specialization/post graduation. The following categories emerged: Pain identification; The Systematization of Nursing Care due to pain management; and Pharmacological and non-Pharmacological use in the control pain. It was verified that the Nursing Team assumes that Newborns feel pain, identifies pain by physiological and behavioral parameters, applies some non-pharmacological measures for its control, but does not use pain assessment scales, resulting in sub-treatment. Conclusions: pain assessment is not strengthened in nursing practice, and there is a necessity of knowledge update about the implementation of a pain evaluation scale aiming quality of care.