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© 2022. This work is licensed under https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (the “License”). Notwithstanding the ProQuest Terms and Conditions, you may use this content in accordance with the terms of the License.

Abstract

Background: Pediatric surgery is associated with a risk of postoperative pain that can impact the family’s quality of life. Although some risk factors for postoperative pain are known, these are often not consistently communicated to families. In addition, although tools for risk communication exist in other domains, none are tailored to pediatric surgery.

Objective: As part of a larger project to develop pain risk prediction tools, we aimed to design an easy-to-use tool to effectively communicate a child’s risk of postoperative pain to both clinicians and family members.

Methods: With research ethics board approval, we conducted virtual focus groups (~1 hour each) comprising clinicians and family members (people with lived surgical experience and parents of children who had recently undergone surgery/medical procedures) at a tertiary pediatric hospital to understand and evaluate potential design approaches and strategies for effectively communicating and visualizing postoperative pain risk. Data were analyzed thematically to generate design requirements and to inform iterative prototype development.

Results: In total, 19 participants (clinicians: n=10, 53%; family members: n=9, 47%) attended 6 focus group sessions. Participants indicated that risk was typically communicated verbally by clinicians to patients and their families, with severity indicated using a descriptive or a numerical representation or both, which would only occasionally be contextualized. Participants indicated that risk communication tools were seldom used but that families would benefit from risk information, time to reflect on the information, and follow-up with questions. In addition, 9 key design requirements and feature considerations for effective risk communication were identified: (1) present risk information clearly and with contextualization, (2) quantify the risk and contextualize it, (3) include checklists for preoperative family preparation, (4) provide risk information digitally to facilitate recall and sharing, (5) query the family’s understanding to ensure comprehension of risk, (6) present the risk score using multimodal formats, (7) use color coding that is nonthreatening and avoids limitations with color blindness, (8) present the most significant factors contributing to the risk prediction, and (9) provide risk mitigation strategies to potentially decrease the patient’s level of risk.

Conclusions: Key design requirements for a pediatric postoperative pain risk visualization tool were established and guided the development of an initial prototype. Implementing a risk communication tool into clinical practice has the potential to bridge existing gaps in the accessibility, utilization, and comprehension of personalized risk information between health care professionals and family members. Future iterative codesign and clinical evaluation of this risk communication tool are needed to confirm its utility in practice.

Details

Title
Identification of Requirements for a Postoperative Pediatric Pain Risk Communication Tool: Focus Group Study With Clinicians and Family Members
Author
Wood, Michael D  VIAFID ORCID Logo  ; Correa, Kim  VIAFID ORCID Logo  ; Ding, Peijia  VIAFID ORCID Logo  ; Sreepada, Rama  VIAFID ORCID Logo  ; Loftsgard, Kent C  VIAFID ORCID Logo  ; Jordan, Isabel  VIAFID ORCID Logo  ; West, Nicholas C  VIAFID ORCID Logo  ; Whyte, Simon D  VIAFID ORCID Logo  ; Portales-Casamar, Elodie  VIAFID ORCID Logo  ; Görges, Matthias  VIAFID ORCID Logo 
First page
e37353
Section
Pediatrics
Publication year
2022
Publication date
Jul 2022
Publisher
JMIR Publications
e-ISSN
25616722
Source type
Scholarly Journal
Language of publication
English
ProQuest document ID
2696747228
Copyright
© 2022. This work is licensed under https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (the “License”). Notwithstanding the ProQuest Terms and Conditions, you may use this content in accordance with the terms of the License.