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

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Background: 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. Methods: 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. Result: 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. Conclusion and Recommendation: 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.