Nurses’ voice when perceiving the pain of child burn patients

Abstract

The objective of this study was to reveal nurses’ perception in view of the nociceptive pain in child burn patients. This qualitative descriptive study was conducted at the Federal District Pediatric Hospital in Mexico City. Data were collected from semistructured interviews with ten nurses working in the burn unit; they were analyzed by content analysis, which yielded three categories. The theoretical framework was based on phenomenology. The results showed the nurses’ experiences, their expression, and their selfdefense mechanisms, as revealed in the perception of their interventions. This highlighted the humanistic load regarding emotions, as the exposure to these feelings implies spending additional strength and energy, because the emotional work becomes more intense as their workloadincreases. Thus, the study concluded that subjects learn about their own experience through experience itself.