Nurses’ experiences of caring for preterm infants in pain: A meta-ethnography

OBJECTIVE: Preterm infants are subjected to numerous painful procedures during their neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) hospitalization. Despite advancements in pain alleviation, nurses remain challenged to provide timely and effective pain management for preterm infants. Greater understanding of the lived experience of nurses caring for preterm infants in pain could provide novel insights to improve pain management for this vulnerable population. The aim of this meta-ethnography was to synthesize and interpret qualitative findings of nurses’ experiences of taking care of preterm infants in pain. METHODS: An extensive literature search in PubMed, CINAHL, PsycINFO, Scopus, BIOSIS and ProQuest Dissertation and Theses Database was conducted, including studies within the past 10 years. Two nursing researchers conducted data extraction and analysis independently. Inclusion criteria were applied to search for qualitative studies of nurse participants who worked in the NICU taking care of preterm infants. Studies published in a language other than English, articles that did not include qualitative data and qualitative data that could not be extracted from the findings or did not discuss nurses’ experiences were excluded. Critical Appraisal Skills Programme was used for literature quality evaluation. RESULTS: Eight studies remained after further screening according to inclusion and exclusion criteria. These eight studies were conducted from 2013 to 2018 and totally enrolled 205 nurses from Iran, Canada, the United States, Finland, Sweden, Switzerland, and Australia. Five themes emerged on the nurses’ perspectives of taking care of preterm infants in pain: 1) They sense the neonatal pain; 2) Adverse consequences of unrelieved pain; 3) Barriers of managing pain; 4) Concerns of available approaches for pain relief; 5) Failure to work with parents. CONCLUSIONS: This meta-ethnography identified nurses’ understanding of pain in preterm infants that can be assessed, and they acknowledged that unrelieved pain could cause developmental deficits in infants. The barriers are lack of training and support on pain assessment and intervention in preterm infants. Optimizing workload and environment, developing age-specified pain assessment and intervention, receiving emotional support and training, and building up a rapport with parents are urgent needs for nurses to provide better care to infants having pain.