Abstract

COLLAO, Carmen  and  BEHN T, Verónica. El dolor en el niño desde una perspectiva ética. Rev Cubana Enfermer [online]. 2003, vol.19, n.2, pp. 0-0. ISSN 1561-2961.

The pain therapist should act in favor of the patient, provide the best possible analgesia and look for the more efficient and less risky means to manage pain. Fulfilling this principle in the child is difficult since it is not possible to experience posology and dosages in children and they are deducted from the results of research in adults; therefore sometimes it is difficult that the indicated posology completely relieves a pain or it happens that the prescribe dosage is higher than the tolerance limit of the child and may lead to unwanted effects. The objective of this paper is to prove the theoretical-practical inconsistency in the field of care science regarding the position that the nursing staff should take in the face of pain and particularly, in the face of the child's suffering. A literature review was made on this topic from both the clinical and ethical viewpoints. Among the main results of this review were the difficulties to measure and assess pain by those who provide pediatric care and also the frequency of performance of medical and nursing maneuvers that cause pain without previously preparing the patient from a psychological point of view. It has been proved that when either pain is caused to a patient or it is not relieved at the right moment, then one is malefficient. Another bioethical principle is autonomy that is violated when a patient suffers from pain and his/her right to choose the time to receive the analgesic is ignored. Some of the interesting findings of this review were that only 2% of nursing texts deals with aspects of pain management in the child and that 45% of texts used by nursing students does not cover ethical issues.

Keywords : PAIN [therapy]; PAIN [drug therapy]; BIOETHICS; ETHICS,NURSING; ANALGESICS [therapeutic use]; CHILD.