Basic HTML Version
Health care professionals can play a vital role
in improving pediatric procedure-related pain
and distress by incorporating psychological interventions
alongside standard care. However,
an understanding of such interventions, and
their evidence for effectiveness, is required to
determine the extent to which they can be incorporated
into clinical practice. Such evidence
can be found by systematically reviewing the
literature. For example, a Cochrane systematic
review of psychological interventions for
needle-related procedural pain and distress in
children and adolescents is presently underway.
7
In addition, there is a planned Cochrane
review of the use of nonpharmacological interventions
for preparing children and adolescents
for hospital care.
8
Psychological
interventions for procedure-related pain and
distress are thus placed firmly on the agenda
for both practice guidelines and in research.
Hypnosis is one such intervention that has
been proposed for use in preparing the child
for procedures including those done under a
general anesthetic,
9
and for incorporation into
the management of anticipatory anxiety/distress
that surrounds the experience of cancerrelated
procedures. An independent panel
from The National Institutes of Health concluded
that there was strong evidence for the