Qualitative Research Article Critique
Sharon Victoria-Cain
NUR/443
February 7, 2011
University of Phoenix

The article, “You Just Have to Make the Pain Go Away”-Children’s Experiences of Pain Management (2008) outlines a participatory case study undertaken in four pediatric units in a university hospital. Researchers collected data until theoretic saturation was reached. As a qualitative research, data techniques employed recorded interviewing and data analysis. The authors indicate that data collection techniques were triangulated in an inductive content analysis. Throughout the study, certain categories were identified from the data collected and coded – these categories were outlined in the tables at the end of the article and can be reviewed on the pain management nursing website. The results abled the researchers to inductively generate hypotheses which result in a grounded theory: “owing to the subjective nature of the pain experience, children’s self-reports should be the most reliable source of the methods used in the management of their pain” (Kortesluoma, Nikkonen, & Serlo, 2008, p. 147-148).
There is a scarcity of research on children’s perception of pain and their expectation of pain management when in a hospital setting. Previous studies focused on methods used by health care providers and parents in alleviating children’s pain. This study’s purpose is to “describe the interventions young children use themselves and their expectations of other’s help, when managing the pain experienced during hospitalization” (Kortesluoma, et al., 2008, p. 144). Gained knowledge provides quality ‘child-centered’ pain management to hospitalized children by health care providers.
The data collected provides insight to understanding children’s pain and identifies interventions that children report useful in managing pain during hospitalization.