Pain assessment and management in paediatric oncology: a cross-sectional audit

Abstract

Aims and objectives: To describe the pain assessment and management practices documented by health professionals within a tertiary-level Children's Cancer Centre and to evaluate how these practices were compared with international recommendations. Background: Children with cancer are vulnerable to pain due to the intensity of antineoplastic therapy. Therefore, it is imperative to ensure that current pain management practices provided to paediatric oncology inpatients are of a high quality. Design: A single-site cross-sectional audit. Methods: A 24-hour period of documented pain-related care in randomly selected inpatients of an Australian tertiary-level Children's Cancer Centre was examined...