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Aim Pain awareness in the neonatal clinic is a medical and ethical problem that has become increasingly important in recent years. Exposure to repetitive painful procedures in the newborn, during the period when the brain develops rapidly and stress perception systems are organized, causes excessive neural activity and somatosensory changes. This situation can cause neurodevelopmental and behavioral problems in the long term. Objective scoring systems such as PIPP, N-PASS, COMFORTneo, CRIES are used in the evaluation of pain in newborns. In this study, we aimed primarily to evaluate pain awareness in healthcare professionals working in the neonatal clinic, and secondarily to determine the trainings to be provided and the precautions to be taken on this subject. Material and Method Our study was planned as single-centered and prospective. The questions used in the evaluation were created according to pain guidelines. It was conducted with 40 questions in 3 categories: demographic data, pain awareness and precautions. Surveys were created via Google forms. Our study was approved by the Sisli Hamidiye Etfal Clinical Research Ethics Commission. Results 124 healthcare professionals participated in our study. 102 (84%) of the participants were women, 78 (63%) were doctors and 46 (37%) were nurses. When the answers were assessed, 95% of the participants stated that they knew that the newborn feels pain, 96% of them evaluated vascular access procedures as a painful procedure, 56% did not know how to use pain scales, and 14% stated that they were inadequate regarding pain-related measures (figure 1). Conclusions In the neonatal unit, although there is pain awareness through the patients treated, all employees should receive repetitive training on pain, and clinic-based pain guides and algorithms should be developed in addition to general guides.
Divarcı et al. (Mon,) studied this question.