Comfort Promise Study

Project status: Active

Research area: Clinical Sciences > Brain and Mind

Comfort Promise - reducing needle pain for kids

We are implementing a hospital-wide strategy to prevent and treat needle pain to reduce trauma and improve care for children.

Up to 75 per cent of hospitalised children experience pain with needles. Pain with needles is the most common and a major source of children’s distress and fear.

Strategies to reduce needle pain are often inconsistently applied. This can cause children significant distress, and can lead to long term fear of needles, and healthcare avoidance.

Fear of needles affects 25 per cent of the adult population and is mainly related to negative childhood experiences.

We are implementing a hospital-wide strategy to prevent and treat needle pain to reduce trauma and improve care for children.

Up to 75 per cent of hospitalised children experience pain with needles. Pain with needles is the most common and a major...

We are implementing a hospital-wide strategy to prevent and treat needle pain to reduce trauma and improve care for children.

Up to 75 per cent of hospitalised children experience pain with needles. Pain with needles is the most common and a major source of children’s distress and fear.

Strategies to reduce needle pain are often inconsistently applied. This can cause children significant distress, and can lead to long term fear of needles, and healthcare avoidance.

Fear of needles affects 25 per cent of the adult population and is mainly related to negative childhood experiences.

About our research

Our vision is to improve children’s experience of needle pain and reduce fear and distress for children attending hospital.

The objectives of the Comfort Promise study are to:

Map the current practices related to needle pain across The Royal Children’s Hospital (RCH).
Implement our hospital-based, system-wide initiative to establish a new standard of care for needle procedures.

In this study we will undertake a comprehensive hospital-wide survey of patients, parents and staff and an electronic medical record review, to characterise patients’ current experiences of pain and its management.

Our approach

Using this baseline data, we will develop an implementation strategy of the Comfort Promise. The Comfort Promise is an established, systematic approach that involves designing, implementing and evaluating new clinical practices and strategies and cultural change in managing children’s needle pain.

The Comfort Promise will be systematically piloted and evaluated in several hospital departments. We will measure children’s pain experience, caregiver satisfaction, staff appraisal, length of procedure/visit and cost consequences.

Outcomes from the pilot trial will be taken into consideration for the hospital-wide expansion and implementation of the Comfort Promise.

The Royal Children’s Hospital (RCH) will be the first hospital in Australia to implement the Comfort Promise, addressing the needs of patients and their families while establishing a scalable and sustainable model to improve clinical care and ensure ongoing success and clinical excellence.

Research team

This project will be led by the MCRI Pain Initiative and a multidisciplinary Steering Committee, comprising representatives from 10 departments/programs at RCH, alongside pain researchers from the University of Melbourne and MCRI.

Members of the Steering Committe include:

Associate Professor Maria McCarthy, Team Leader / Principal Research Fellow, Brain and Mind group, MCRI
Associate Professor Adrienne Harvey, Team Leader / Principal Research Fellow, Neurodisability and Rehabilitation group, MCRI
Professor Vicki Anderson, Theme Director, Clinical Sciences, MCRI
Dr Anthea Greenway, Honorary Fellow Manager, Haematology group, MCRI & Director & Honorary Manager, Department of Haematology, RCH
A/Prof Catherine Olweny, Consultant Anesthetist, RCH
Professor Denise Harrison, Professor Dept of Nursing, School of Health Sciences, University of Melbourne
Sonja Gustin, Senior Project Officer, Neurodisability and Rehabilitation group, MCRI