Non-pharmaceutical Approaches for Pediatric Pain Management: Review of Literature

Abstract

 Background: Nonpharmacological management as an alternative approach to reducing pain intensity
among children has recently been widely tested in experimental studies. Many types of
nonpharmacological pain management were investigated at different medical invasive procedures.
Therefore, it's difficult to determine which approach is more effective for pain reduction among children.
That is why this review is made.
Objectives: The current review aims to introduce an evidence base on pain management among children, through an evaluation and critique for the most evidence-based researches world-wide that applying the nonpharmacological approaches only.
Methods: A narrative review study focused on pediatric nonpharmacological pain management studies,
that carried out by searching the available databases such as Google Scholar, Research Gate, Semantic
Scholar, and PubMed. The included studies were available free for download and were published for the
last ten years. All selected studies were looking for the effect of nonpharmacological pain management
among the pediatric population. 15 studies were selected according to study criteria out of 640 available
studies. These studies were recorded by forming a data extraction form in a Microsoft Excel sheet to
include authors name, year of publication, targeted sample, study design, methods of
nonpharmacological pain management, and main findings of the study and recommendation.
Results: Fifteen studies met the inclusion criteria, all studies include one type or more methods of
nonpharmacological pain management for children, that tested the effect of such approaches on pain
level. The non-nonpharmacological pain management approaches are approved to be as effective as and occasionally better than the pharmacological pain management approaches.
Conclusion: This review highlights that adopting the nonpharmacological pain management approaches
is effective and may be better than the pharmacological approaches in reducing the associated pain
during medical procedures. This review draws a step for further research for new and creative approaches to decrease children's pain and increase their compliance during painful medical procedures.