Abstract

Working with a child in pain is difficult, unavoidable and especially challenging when the child cannot explain what they are feeling. In this important book, Bernie Carter and Joan Simons bring together experience, evidence and research to deconstruct the topic and present the reality of children's pain.

Each chapter starts with a personal story from a child, a family member or a healthcare professional. The stories are drawn from a wealth of original research, and focus the reader on the individual child and their family. The chapter then goes on to introduce the relevant research, theory and implications for practice, so health professionals can use the evidence to support compassionate, child-centred care.

Among the topics addressed are:

- Ethical dilemmas

- Assessing pain

- Working in different settings

- Inexplicable pain

It is valuable reading for any healthcare student or professional working with children of all ages.

‘This excellent, evidence-based book will help practitioners personalise children’s pain in age-appropriate and family-centred ways. Every nurse that has contact with neonates and children should read it and take note.’ 

Professor Jane Noyes, Chair in Health Services Research and Child Health, Bangor University and Visiting Professor of Child Health, University College Dublin
Carter and Simons frame their thorough discussions of the evidence-based literature on pain within extended first-person stories of the children themselves, their families, and the nurses struggling to provide good care. Real people with fears, frustrations, and losses are never subsumed into that abstract entity called "patients". Carter and Simons make a clear case for how much pain matters in treating illness, and why personal caring makes all the difference in treating pain.


 
Arthur W. Frank, Professor Emeritus, University of Calgary, author of The Wounded Storyteller and Letting Stories Breathe