Paediatrics pain management practice and associated factor among nurses at comprehensive and specialized hospital, Northwest Ethiopia, 2023: hospital based multicentre cross-sectional study

Pain management is a challenging intervention for children of all ages and a major worldwide health issue for painful illnesses that are stressful and range from moderate to severe. Inadequate pain management has serious short-term and long-term consequences for the physical, psychological, social, and physiological well-being of infants, toddlers, preschoolers, and schoolchildren. This study set out to assess nurses’ behaviours in treating paediatric pain and associated factors. A multicenter cross-sectional study was conducted. Convenient sampling was used to pick each participant in this study. The information was gathered using self-administered, semi-structured, and structured questionnaires. In the multivariable logistic regression analysis, variables with a P-value of 0.05 or less were considered statistically significant for the outcome variable. The adjusted odds ratio (AOR) and crude odds ratio with the appropriate 95% CI were computed to determine the strength of the link between the dependent and independent variables. A total of 356 nurses were invited to participate in this study, with a response rate of 314 (88.2%) (95% CI: 53.3–64.4) in the study of participant nurses. It was found that level of education, having a master’s degree (AOR=6.35, CI=1.03–38.23), a child’s cooperativeness for taking pain medication (AOR=2.11, CI=1.25–3.55), the presence of an evidence-based protocol for paediatric pain management in the facility (AOR=1.75, CI=1.007–3.03), work experience in the nursing profession for more than 2 years (AOR=1,97, CI=0.71–4.31), and the availability of a paediatric pain assessment tool also, had three times more engaged in good paediatric pain management practice 2.96 (AOR=2.96 (CI: 1.66–5.28)) and having training on pain management (AOR=2.64, CI=1.27–5.47) were associated with paediatric pain management practice. Most of the participants were proficient at handling pain in children. The majority of participants had good practices, but there are still several crucial traits that have a big influence on how nurses manage paediatric pain. As a result, the authors suggest offering easily accessible paediatric pain assessment instruments, evidence-based procedures, and paediatric pain treatment in-service training.