POP - Parent led pain management

Infants at the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) are exposed to a lot of painful procedures during their care and repeated pain can lead to negative consequences such as an affected development of the central nervous system and a changed pain response later in life. Research has shown that parents want to be a part of their infants’ pain management and that this is both safe and effective. Despite this, studies have shown that parents are not involved to the extent that is recommended. In the POP project scientists and parent representatives from Finland, Canada and Sweden are collaborating and the aim is to describe the theory behind parent led pain management, identify barriers, develop an index where NICUs can see how well they perform with involving parents as well as implementation of an intervention.