Salivary Cortisol: A Indicator of Pain in Preterm Infants
The research article that I choose to evaluate is titled Salivary Cortisol as Indicator of Pain in Preterm Infants. There are a few advantages to the staff RN performing the nursing research. Pain in preterm and full term infants was not considered until the late 1980s. Up until this time, infants were thought to have no capacity to interpret or recall pain experience. The tools used today to evaluate their pain have not been proven to be completely accurate. Studying the effects of pain on salivary cortisol levels may display a consistent alteration in cortisol levels in infants. If the results prove valid and reliable, this may be a more accurate assessment of infant pain and pain control. This is an advantage to the nurses and physicians in being able to have evidence of optimal or inadequate pain control, and obviously it would have great advantages for the infants themselves. Also even if the results are not utilized in the clinical setting, it may lead to future studies. There are also disadvantages to the study. First, the number of infants tested were few. The study was supposed to interpret pain . . .
With out naming any names, the physician that performed the circumcision believes that newborns do not feel pain. As the physician starts, the newborn suddenly wakes with a jerk and starts this loud high-pitched cry. In the article I also learned that infants who received anesthesia and analgesia demonstrated lower cortisol and catecholamine levels and decreased mortality and morbidity. Also, if this method is used in the future, cortisol levels would not be accurate until after day five. Also, although I feel that the current pain assessment tools or methods are not adequate in assessing pain, the results of this study were not conclusive enough to alter my nursing practice in these situations. He/she stated that the only reason that they cry is because they are strapped to the board. Pain actually induces an endocrine response, resulting in increased cortisol levels in term and preterm infants. This is most accurately done by blood tests, but of course this would just cause more pain to the infant. According to Hockenberry, Wilson, Winkelstein, and Kline (2003), many physicians are still under the belief that neonates do not possess sufficiently integrated cortical function to interpret or recall pain experiences, and that the risk of anesthesia is too great to justify any possible benefit of pain relief. Because I already do not believe that neonates do not have the capacity to feel pain, I would not change anything in my own nursing practice due to the results of this study. Although, not perfected, there is this possibility. All of the infants tested were preterm. Do I believe that this infant felt pain? Definitely. After the physician says this, the nurse brings in a sleeping baby and straps him to the “circ” board. The research done must be very valid and reliable for a physician to change the presently used pain assessment and pain control methods.
Common topics in this essay:
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