Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organization (JCAHO) regulates pain as the fifth vital sign and require care givers to regularly assess and address it, however it remains one of the undertreated and underrecognized and misunderstood medical problem in children.
Inadequate training of health care workers, personal biases and fear of prescribing pain medication such as Morphine as children can be addicted to it. Misconception on children’s pain and lack of pain assessment tool can also be a barrier. Most doctors focus on the source of pain rather the symptoms while most of the people believe that children do not remember pain and they experience less pain to adults.
N.B. Failure to implement evidence-based pain prevention and treatment for children in medical facilities is considered in-admissible and poor standard of care
