Intranasal Fentanyl - An Effective First Line Analgesia for Children

Date
2009-08-29
Authors
Britnell, S
Supervisor
Item type
Conference Contribution
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Journal Title
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Volume Title
Publisher
Emergency Nurse New Zealand
Abstract

Rapid and effective analgesia is important particularly when intravenous (IV) access is unavailable. Children present unique challenges and achieving effective analgesia and this may often be delayed due to staff skill and availability, patient and caregiver anxiety combined with varying responses to pain and difficult IV access. Fentanyl is a rapid acting medication which takes 2 minutes to reach serum therapeutic levels. This makes it a viable choice of analgesia while longer term pain relief options are considered. The decision to utilise the IV route and administration of Fentanyl is nurse initiated on triage in CED in collaboration with medical staff who prescribe the medication, this is commenced at triage to decrease the time to analgesia.

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Source
Emergency and Flight Nurses Conference held at Christchurch Hospital, Christchurch, New Zealand. 2009
DOI
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NOTICE: this is the author’s version of a work that was accepted for publication. Changes resulting from the publishing process, such as peer review, editing, corrections, structural formatting, and other quality control mechanisms may not be reflected in this document. Changes may have been made to this work since it was submitted for publication. A definitive version was subsequently published in (see Citation).