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Pain description of hospitalized Chinese Canadian and non-Chinese Canadian school-aged children

University of British Columbia

Culture shapes our explanatory systems which influence how we perceive experience, express, and cope with illness and distress. Recognizing and being sensitive to cultural variation in pain perception and responses enhances assessment and management of pain in children. Such assessment not only assists accurate pain management but, also enable nurses to set aside personal values and judgements. Consequently, nurses begin to evaluate the significance of pain from the children's culture perspective, thus enabling therapeutic and effective pain management. A few studies have begun to examine the cultural variation in children's pain perception and expression. This study examining pain description of hospitalized Chinese and non- Chinese Canadian school-aged children, will contribute to the data bank on cultural variations in ethnic culture groups. This descriptive study using a developed questionnaire tool was conducted at three sites in two hospitals. The data was obtained from children aged 7 to 12 years who recalled or recently experienced procedural pain, and prior to surgical procedures or major treatments. Twenty-two children who met the study criteria participated in the study; 10 were Chinese and 12 were non-Chinese Canadian subjects. Demographic data was collected from the families prior to the interview with the children and in a semi-structured interview using a developed questionnaire, each child was asked seven questions. Where appropriate, responses to the questions were categorized in pre-determined categories and descriptive statistics were used to analyze the findings. Content analysis were used in questions where they were not amenable to statistical analysis. Findings from each group were examined for trends in responses, and later were compared between groups to identify differences or similarities in the patterns of responses. Research findings from the questionnaire data revealed some similarities and a few notable differences between the Chinese and non-Chinese children. First, most children described the colour of pain using red. Second, Chinese children selected greater sensory words to describe pain compared to the non-Chinese children. Third, the Chinese children used less overt expressions in expressing feelings related to pain. Other identified patterns of behaviour unrelated to the questionnaire were; 1) the approval-seeking behaviour during the interview in the Chinese children, and 2) the parents' encouragement of their children to participate in the study in the Chinese group versus the parents' seeking permission from the children to participate in the non-Chinese children.

Thesis/Dissertation

application/pdf

2009-01-31

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http://hdl.handle.net/2429/4047

Nursing

University of British Columbia

UBCV

DSpace