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Acute Pain in Children, Procedural

  • Reference work entry
Encyclopedia of Pain

Synonyms

Acute procedural pain in children; Pediatric pharmacological interventions; Pediatric psychological interventions

Definition

Acute procedural pain refers to the relatively brief pain that infants and children experience as a result of necessary invasive preventative, diagnostic, and therapeutic medical procedures. Procedural pain management is the pharmacological, psychological, and physical interventions used to prevent, reduce, or eliminate the affective and sensory components of pain that accompany many acute medical procedures.

Characteristics

Acute procedural pain can be defined as the affective and sensory distress that accompanies a brief but invasive medical event. This includes routine (e.g., venous access, immunization injections) and specialized (e.g., bone marrow aspiration, urethral catheterization, burn debridement) procedures. Pain is not a necessary part of the medical intervention, and this aversive affective and sensory side effect is often untreated,...

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Psychology, Georgia State University, 140 Decatur Street, 30302-5010, Atlanta, GA, USA

    Lindsey Cohen, Laura A. Cousins & Sarah R. Martin

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  1. Lindsey Cohen
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  2. Laura A. Cousins
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  3. Sarah R. Martin
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Correspondence to Lindsey Cohen .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Anesthesiology, Center for Pain Research, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA, USA

    Gerald F. Gebhart

  2. Physiologisches Institut der, Universität Würzburg, Würzburg, Germany

    Robert F. Schmidt

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Cohen, L., Cousins, L.A., Martin, S.R. (2013). Acute Pain in Children, Procedural. In: Gebhart, G.F., Schmidt, R.F. (eds) Encyclopedia of Pain. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-28753-4_70

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