Abstract:
Abstract
Background: Non-pharmacological methods are effective in relieving children’s postoperative pain
when used independently or in combination with medications. Despite the fact that they are
recommended in different studies, poor implementation of those methods has been recognized in health
care practice due to different factors. Assessing utilization of non-pharmacological methods in children’s
post-operative pain relief and identification of associated factors helps to improve the quality of
postoperative pain management in children.
Objective: The objective of this study was to assess utilization and associated factors of nonpharmacological methods for post-operative pain relief in school-age children by paediatric nurses; a
multi-centre, cross-sectional study, Amhara National Regional State, Ethiopia, 2022
Methods: A multi-centre, cross-sectional study was conducted on paediatric nurses working in
comprehensive specialized hospitals from April 15, 2022, to June 5, 2022. The questionnaire was selfadministered and contains demographic data, Yes or No, True or False and five point Likert-scale
questions that measure utilization of nondrug methods. SPSS version 26 software was used for the entry
and analysis of data. Descriptive and inferential statistics with an ordinal logistic regression model were
computed. The strength of associations was described by OR with a 95% CI. Variables with a p value of
0.05 were considered statistically significant. Bloom’s cut-off point was used to set a threshold for good,
fair, and poor utilization.
Result: Among 404 paediatric nurses, 385 participated in this study with a 95.3% response rate.
According to our findings, utilization of non-pharmacological methods for children’s postoperative pain
relief by paediatric nurses was "good" in 13.8 % of respondents (95% CI: 10.6-17.7), "fair" in 24.4% of
respondents (95 % CI: 20-28.6), and "poor" in 61.8% of respondents (95%CI: 56.9-66.5). Statistically
significant factors that have been associated positively with the outcome variable were training on nonpharmacological methods (AOR:2.1, 95%CI: 1.-3.98), presence of their own children (AOR:3.7, 95%
CI:2.06-6.81), Level of knowledge (AOR:1.9, 95%CI: 1.12-3.28), perception on non-pharmacological
methods as haven’t slow effect and perception as they are a part of conventional pain relief strategies
(AOR:7.4, 95%CI: 4.19-13.29) and (AOR: 5.4, 95%CI: 3.13-9.29) respectively
