Over the past few decades, research

Over the past few decades, researchers have focused on
developing and validating pain measurements, establishing
standards and guidelines, and educating clinicians on their
use, with the goal of implementing proper pain management
practices for hospitalised children. Much effort has also been
made to test the efficacy of non-pharmacological interventions
in pain relief, such as using sucrose (Stevens et al.
2010) and pacifiers (Yilmaz & Arikan 2010). The development
of these guidelines and interventions has led to
improvement in children’s pain management. Johnston et al.
(2011) recently reported that the number of painful procedures
has decreased and the use of analgesics has increased
over the past 12 years in Canadian NICUs. Despite this
modest increase in pain management strategies, pain assessment
documentation continues to fall far below the international
standard with little evidence to support an
improvement in pain outcomes for children (Franck & Bruce
2009, Johnston et al. 2011)