Infant Pain Management at Home: Evaluation of Parental Knowledge and Attitudes
Abstract
Purpose: This study was conducted to determine the knowledge and attitudes of parents with 0-1-year-old infants applied to a family health center about pain assessment and management at home.
Methods: A comparative, correlational, descriptive and cross-sectional study was conducted with 203 parents. To collect the data " Personal Information Form " and "Parental pediatric pain assessment and management knowledge and attitude questionnaire" were used. Number, percentage, mean±standard deviation was used to analyze descriptive data; Mann Whitney U and Kruskal Wallis for comparative statistics; Spearman correlation analysis for correlational statistics.
Results: Of the parents, 96.6% were mothers, and 67.8% brought their infants for vaccination/injection. Most parents reported feeling competent in recognizing (66.5%) and managing (60%) their baby’s pain at home. The mean scores of the parents for pain assessment and management at home were found to be knowledge 7.49±2.36, attitude 12.65±2.10 and total 20.14±3.47. Parent type (mother), family type (extended), infant age, and chronic illness status were among the sociodemographic variables with statistically significant differences (p<0.05).
Conclusion: In this study, parental pain assessments of infants brought to the family health center were found to be low, but their pain status was found to be high when the presenting complaints were taken into consideration. Parents' knowledge scores for pain assessment and management at home were low, while their attitudes and total scores were moderate. Nurses should provide parents with practical training and counseling on pediatric pain management during postnatal discharge education and routine infant health visits.
Keywords
Ethical Statement
The study was approved by the Non-Interventional Research Ethics Committee of a university (26.04.2022, 61351342).
References
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Details
Primary Language
English
Subjects
Pediatric Health and Illnesses Nursing
Journal Section
Research Article
Publication Date
January 16, 2026
Submission Date
September 8, 2025
Acceptance Date
November 12, 2025
Published in Issue
Year 2026 Volume: 17 Number: January, February, March 2026