Parental Anxiety and Perceptions of Pain Medication Administration
Mentor 1
W. Hobart Davies
Start Date
10-5-2022 10:00 AM
Description
All children will at some point experience acute pain, making deciding whether to administer pain medication to children a common responsibility of parents. The opioid crisis brought attention to the dangers of the misuse of narcotic pain medication and created misconceptions endorsed by parents regarding the analgesic treatment of children’s pain. Previous research that analyzed a dataset collected between 2007 to 2009 investigated how parents perceived analgesic administration to treat their children’s pain found that parents were uncertain of the safety of analgesics. There is a lack of guidelines from the CDC instructing parents on when to administer opioids to treat children’s chronic pain. Past studies have reported that parents lack knowledge of analgesics and their side effects. Certain personal characteristics of the parent may play a role in their analgesic administration decision-making. Parental anxiety and the potential impact it could have on their perception of the administration of analgesics to treat their children’s pain has not been extensively studied. Our current research will determine the relationship between parental anxiety and their comfortability administering analgesics as well as any misconceptions and beliefs they may endorse regarding analgesics. Participants were recruited by students enrolled in an advanced psychology laboratory class. Those parents included in the study completed a survey that was distributed in the summer and fall of 2021. It is hypothesized that parents with higher anxiety scores on a PROMIS anxiety questionnaire will be less comfortable administering analgesics for the treatment of their child’s pain and will endorse more misconceptions about analgesics. The results of this study will provide insight to the medical community on how to educate parents on analgesic administration to their children and bring awareness to the impact parental anxiety may have on children's healthcare, allowing for improvements to be made in the management of pediatric pain.
Parental Anxiety and Perceptions of Pain Medication Administration
All children will at some point experience acute pain, making deciding whether to administer pain medication to children a common responsibility of parents. The opioid crisis brought attention to the dangers of the misuse of narcotic pain medication and created misconceptions endorsed by parents regarding the analgesic treatment of children’s pain. Previous research that analyzed a dataset collected between 2007 to 2009 investigated how parents perceived analgesic administration to treat their children’s pain found that parents were uncertain of the safety of analgesics. There is a lack of guidelines from the CDC instructing parents on when to administer opioids to treat children’s chronic pain. Past studies have reported that parents lack knowledge of analgesics and their side effects. Certain personal characteristics of the parent may play a role in their analgesic administration decision-making. Parental anxiety and the potential impact it could have on their perception of the administration of analgesics to treat their children’s pain has not been extensively studied. Our current research will determine the relationship between parental anxiety and their comfortability administering analgesics as well as any misconceptions and beliefs they may endorse regarding analgesics. Participants were recruited by students enrolled in an advanced psychology laboratory class. Those parents included in the study completed a survey that was distributed in the summer and fall of 2021. It is hypothesized that parents with higher anxiety scores on a PROMIS anxiety questionnaire will be less comfortable administering analgesics for the treatment of their child’s pain and will endorse more misconceptions about analgesics. The results of this study will provide insight to the medical community on how to educate parents on analgesic administration to their children and bring awareness to the impact parental anxiety may have on children's healthcare, allowing for improvements to be made in the management of pediatric pain.
