Health care professionals pain narratives in hospitalized children's medical records. Part 2: Structure and content

Abstract

BACKGROUND: Although clinical narratives - described as free-text notations - have been noted to be a source of patient information, no studies have examined the composition of pain narratives in hospitalized children's medical records. OBJECTIVES: To describe the structure and content of health care professionals' narratives related to hospitalized children's acute pain. METHODS: All pain narratives documented during a 24 h period were collected from the medical records of 3822 children (0 to 18 years of age) hospitalized in 32 inpatient units in eight Canadian pediatric hospitals. A qualitative descriptive exploration using a content analysis approach was performed. RESULTS: Three major st..