Reducing Needle Stick Pain for Pediatric Patients

Needle stick pain is one of the most frequent pains that are experienced by children who are in the hospital.   Patient satisfaction data indicates that there is great variability in how clinicians start IVs, draw blood and complete procedure that include needlesticks which results in varying degrees of discomfort and distress.   This clinical project is the implementation of evidence based practices (drug and non-drug therapies) to decrease the pain associated with needlesticks in children.  A multidisciplinary team is involved in baseline data collection, identification of resources, staff education, policy development and ongoing evaluation. 

 

Student Tasks and Responsibilities:  1. Interacting with patients and staff- in distributing and collecting survey data2. Attending multidisciplinary meetings to help plan education 3.  Assist in developing and piloting educational materials 4.  Opportunity to interaction with nurses and physicians on the pain service and IV teams. 5.  Assist in data entry, analysis and reporting of survey data