Study of Cognitive Intervention Effects in Reducing Pain Intensity, Distress and Improvement of Situation-Related Life Quality of Children with Cancer

The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of combined use of preparing child/parent and distracting the child as a cognitive intervention, on reported- pain intensity, distress due to lumbar puncture/intrathecal injection and situation-related quality of life of children with cancer. This study was a pretest-posttest experimental design with control group. Research population was children with all kind of cancer who had referred to Mahak and Mofid hospitals in Tehran. 41 child–parent pairs were selected and randomly assigned to either an experimental or a control group. Children were visited twice. In the first visit, both groups were under routine hospital care and in the second visit, the experimental group received cognitive intervention and the control group received routine hospital care. Data were collected by demographic questionnaire, Oucher, CHEOPS and The PedsQL Present Functioning Visual Analogue Scales. Findings showed that cognitive intervention of preparing child/parent and distracting the child, reduced reported-pain intensity, distress and improved situation-related life quality of children. There was a significant positive correlation between reported-pain intensity and level of distress; a significant negative correlation between reported-pain intensity and situation-related life quality and a significant negative correlation between level of distress and situation-related life quality. Cognitive interventions are effective in reducing reported-pain intensity, distress and improving situation-related quality of life of children with cancer who are under lumbar puncture/intrathecal injection. We suggest using cognitive intervention in managing pain and distress due to this procedure.