Welcome to the 9th EAPS Congress Programme Scheduling

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NEONATAL PAIN ASSESSMENT

All infants undergo ubiquitous painful procedures during early life and those that are ill or born preterm requiring neonatal intensive care undergo on average 10 procedures daily, most receiving sub-optimal management. This untreated pain is associated with immediate and longer-lasting adverse outcomes. One challenge to optimal neonatal pain management is the inability of infants to self-report. While consistent age-appropriate pain assessment has been linked with better pain management, evidence suggests that pain is not routinely assessed. Challenges remain regarding consensus on what are the optimal pain indicators to assess pain, how to best ensure health care provider pain assessment competence, how to integrate routine pain assessment into practice, and the role of parents in pain assessment.

During this didactic and interactive presentation, the latest evidence addressing these challenges will be reviewed and participants will also have the opportunity to practice interactive pain assessment.

The aim of the session will be to highlight the current state of evidence for optimal neonatal assessment, strategies to facilitate practice uptake and to identify areas for future research.

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Over the last decades there has been an almost exponential increase in pediatric pain research, both clinical and pre-clinical studies, aiming at improving pain management for children in all ages. In many areas there is now enough evidence on how to minimize pain and the problem is low grades of clinical implementation. Children don’t get the pain alleviation they are entitled to, due to lack of resources, lack of guidelines or lack of interest.

In other areas we still need to find the best methods for the specific population and the specific situation and pain type.

This lecture will give some examples of recent studies on pharmacological and non-pharmacological interventions and bring forward the latest evidence. The objective is to inspire the audience to better uptake of the latest knowledge in the clinical work, and also to start collaborative research in areas where better evidence is needed.