A child-focused intervention for coping with procedural pain: are parent and nurse coaches necessary?

Objective: To examine the efficacy of training children to cope with immunization pain without the assistance of trained coaches and determine whether untrained parents or nurses are more effective at decreasing children's distress.

Methods: We compared the procedural coping and distress behavior of 31 3- to 7-year-old children trained in coping skills to 30 who did not receive training. The behavior of the untrained parents and nurses was evaluated as it related to child coping and distress.

Results: Children demonstrated understanding of the training, but they did not use the coping skills during the procedure. In general, the nurses' behavior was associated with child coping and parents' behavior with child distress.

Conclusions: More extensive child training or the involvement of coaches for procedural distress might be necessary. Nurses' behavior appears to center on encouraging child coping, and parents tend to comfort child distress.