Assessment and pain relief in newborns

Abstract

This study was to identify how nurses of neonatal unit care evaluate pain in newborns and how they act in the presence of neonatal pain. That is a transversal quantitative study with 32 nurses who worked at a neonatal unit in a private hospital in São Paulo. They answered a form about assessment and conducts in neonatal pain. Among the parameters cited by nurses for the assessment of pain, the crying and facial expression were the most cited, followed by change in vital signs, agitation and parameters used in the scale NIPS (physiological and behavioral). Faced with the diagnosis of pain, most professionals have chosen to use pharmacological methods such as non-steroidal anti-inflammatory, powerful opóides, sedative, weak opiódes and local anesthetics. And non pharmacologicals methods of pain relief were change of decubit or local massage non-nutritive sucking (pacifier or finger enluvado) and the bath of immersion. Therefore concluded that nurses evaluate pain by facial expression and crying. And using non-steroidal anti-inflammatory analgesic, the change of decubitus, the massage and not nutritive sucking for pain relief.