Nurses’ Knowledge, Practice, And Associated Factors Towards Postoperative Pediatric Pain Management in Selected Public Hospitals, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, 2022. Cross-Sectional Study

Background: Pain is a leading cause for an individual to visit health care. Among pain, post-operative pediatric pain is a highly reported pain with poor outcomes among pediatric populations. For these poor outcomes, the contribution of nurses is significant as they are frontline in its management. So, this study aimed to determine nurses’ knowledge and practice toward postoperative pediatric pain management. Methods: : An Institutional based cross-sectional study was conducted on february15-March 15 and a purposive sampling technique was applied. A total of 245 nurses were involved from selected public hospitals. Data was collected by using self –administered structured questionnaire and after data collection, it was coded and then entered into the Epi Data Version 4.6 software and exported to the statistical product and service solutions (SPSS) Version 25 software for analysis. Bivariate and multivariate logistic regressions were done to identify factors that are associated with knowledge, and practice of postoperative pediatric pain management of nurses. Results: : The study showed that 42.5% of all the nurses had an overall good knowledge of postoperative pediatrics pain management while 38.1% had good practice of postoperative pediatrics pain management.It was found that, educational level; Diploma (AOR=0.04 [95% CI, 0.008-0.22]), BSc (AOR=0.107 [95% CI, 0.03-0.38]), year of nursing services; less than five years (AOR=0.009 [95% CI, 0.001-0.11]), pediatric pain management contents included in nursing curriculum (AOR= 5.96 [95% CI, 2.45-14.51]) and training (AOR=7.16 [95% CI, 2.33-22.04]) had significantly associated with nurses’ knowledge and practice towards postoperative pain management at < 0.05 p-value. Conclusions: : This study emphasized the importance of improved educational levels and on-site/ off-site training for nurses as it ensures improved pain management.