Pain and Comfort Management Clinical Resources

BC Children’s Hospital internal education 

Partnering for Pain

BC Children’s Hospital staff designed the Partnering for Pain course to advance awareness of the ChildKind framework and build on current knowledge about pain care. 

Comfort Protocol 

During the Comfort Protocol course, you will become aware of the Comfort Protocol for Clinical Procedures, also known as the Comfort PACT (pain addressed, comfort tended). The Comfort PACT assists in making comfort a priority by encouraging health-care professionals to apply five key pillars to support a person's comfort during clinical procedures: preparation, communication, comfort positions, alternate focus and medication.

Provincial education

Pain BC modules

Pain BC offers a series of pain education initiatives for health-care professionals, with the following goals: explore pain science and how it relates to your practice; upgrade your profession-specific skills; gain improved competence in providing care for pain. Explore their website to learn more about the courses offered by Pain BC.

National and international education

Toronto Sick Kids Online Paediatric Pain Curriculum

If you would like to gain more in-depth knowledge about pediatric pain, Toronto Sick Kids offers a series of self-paced modules. “The goal of the Online Paediatric Pain Curriculum is to provide a broad education platform for health-care professionals to learn about pain with clinical, basic science and ethical themes.”

Other courses and classes

• International Association for the Study of Pain Education
• Stad Centre for Pediatric Pain, Palliative and Integrative Medicine Pediatric Pain Master Class
• University of Alberta, Faculty of Rehabilitation Medicine Graduate Certificate in Pain Management

• Comfort Champion resource web page: contains education requirements for onboarding as a comfort champion at BC Children's Hospital. (Note: must be connected to the PHSA network)
• Pain in Child Health: Global research training has cultivated a tight-knit community of scientists and trainees dedicated to learning and informing changes in practice to minimize pain and suffering of children around the globe
• International Association for the Study of Pain is an interactive web community dedicated to finding new treatments for pain conditions
• Pain Research Forum: a collection of articles covering basic questions in pain research
• The Aboriginal Children’s Hurt & Healing (ACHH) Initiative is working with communities and clinicians to bridge the gap in our understanding of Indigenous children’s pain and hurt, and improve health-care experiences
• Mind Body Techniques: Helping children to cope with painful procedures (PDF): this booklet is a collection of cases and reflections using techniques to promote comfort written by BC Children’s Hospital staff who completed the Mind-Body Techniques training with Dr. Leora Kuttner and Dr. Torie
• Solutions for Kids in Pain (SKIP) is a Canadian national knowledge mobilization network working to improve children’s pain management by mobilizing evidence-based solutions through coordination and collaboration. SKIP seeks to bridge the gap between current treatment practices and available evidence for children's pain

‎Comfort Protocol education series

A series of four webinars recorded to explain the five pillars of the Comfort Protocol for Clinical Procedures, also known as the Comfort PACT (pain addressed, comfort tended). The Comfort PACT assists in making comfort a priority by encouraging health-care professionals to apply five key pillars to support a person's comfort during clinical procedures: preparation, communication, comfort positions, alternate focus and medication.

This webinar series is meant to accompany the Comfort Protocol for Clinical Procedures e-learning available on LearningHub.

• Session #1: Medication with Kendra Sih (recorded October 4, 2021)
• Session #2: Communication with Dr. Leora Kuttner (recorded October 18, 2021)
• Session #3: Comfort Positions and Alternate Focus with Bernadette Sanchez and Jessica Innell (Child Life intern, McMaster University) (recorded November 1, 2021)
• Session #4: Procedural Preparation: Techniques to support patient coping, with Becki Steel and Alyssa Premji (recorded November 15, 2021) 

ChildKind webinar series

Presentations and Q&As with exciting guests, panels of pain experts, and ChildKind representatives. Topics range from best practices in pain treatment, to discussions about obstacles, to developing and sustaining pain management infrastructure, to current topics such as COVID-19's impact on pediatric pain.

Find the ChildKind webinar recordings here.

Children’s Healthcare Canada SPARK series

The Children's Healthcare Canada SPARK: live webinar series is a weekly webinar program dedicated to bringing together trusted and credible voices from across the child and youth health-care continuum. (Note: click on the words “pain” or “pediatric pain”.)

Canadian Pain Task Force: Best Practice Findings In Pediatric Pain video (recorded Jan 18, 2021): in this webinar a panel of presenters provide a brief background on the Canadian Pain Task Force and discuss the findings from the first two phases of the task force’s mandate.

BC Children’s Hospital Pain Symposium 2021

Watch recordings of BC Children's Hospital's 3rd annual symposium, which features presentations from leading pediatric pain specialists and health-care providers from across Canada on a variety of topics related to managing acute and chronic complex pain in children and youth. The symposium also includes a panel discussion with youth living with chronic pain and their families on the impacts of untreated pain and ways to improve pain management and support.

National and international conferences

• 2023 North American Pain School, Montebello, QC, June 18-23
• IASP World Congress on Pain
• Regional Anesthesiology and Acute Pain Medicine meetings
• Canadian Pain Society – Annual Scientific Meeting
• World Pain Summit

BC Children's Hospital Project ECHO Pediatrics Series 2021: Comfort with complexity

Through this project, participants gained knowledge through access to specialty clinical experts, an inter-professional network, and a practice community to support the delivery of best-practice care to optimize comfort for pediatric patients with a serious illness and medical complexity. Request resources from the "Comfort with complexity" session.

Pediatric Project ECHO – SickKids Hospital Toronto 

SickKids ECHO project provides health-care providers with access to evidence-based knowledge, an interprofessional network, and a community of practice to support the delivery of safe and effective care to their pediatric patients.

Access Pediatric ECHO sessions related to Pediatric Pain.

Special interest group on pain in childhood 

Join the special interest group of the International Association for the Study of Pain, applying pain research and treatment.

There are various services and departments at BC Children’s Hospital that support pain care:

• Complex Pain Service: The Complex Pain Clinic serves pediatric patients with chronic pain, complex pain and/or persisting (non-cancer) pain that significantly impairs function
• Acute Pain Service: Patients' sub-specialty care teams access this consultative service to support and promote best practice in managing discomfort when infants, children and youth are in hospital
• Child Life specialists: Certified Child Life specialists at BC Children's Hospital make hospitalization a more positive experience for patients through play, therapeutic interventions, preparation and creative arts
• Department of Anesthesia: The Department of Pediatric Anesthesia cares for children of all ages with many different medical conditions. Our team of anesthesiologists (medical doctors) provide sedation, anesthesia and analgesia for a wide range of surgical and diagnostic procedures. We are also experts in pain management and critical care
• Department of Psychology: We serve children and families dealing with acute and chronic medical conditions, mental health disorders and psychiatric disorders
• Department of Physiotherapy: We offer physiotherapy to inpatients and outpatients in other clinics at the hospital. We provide preventive, diagnostic and rehabilitative services to enhance the quality of cardiorespiratory, musculoskeletal and neurological function in children

Evidence-based practice documents to support pain care. All documents are available on SHOP.

• Pain and Comfort Policy (PDF)
• Pain Management Standard (PDF)
• Pain Assessment Standard (PDF)
• Person and Family-centred Care Standard (PDF)
• Comfort with Clinical Procedures Standard (PDF)
• Full list of clinical pain documents

• Pain Assessment and Management Algorithm (PDF)
  • Appendix A (page 8)
• Pain Management Flow Chart (PDF)
  • Appendix B (page 9)
• Pain Assessment Tools Table (PDF)
  • Appendix C (page 8)

The following resources are meant for health-care professionals to share with patients and families.

Pediatric Pain Guide for Caregivers: Understanding pain

This guide from the Family Support and Resource Centre (FSRC) features resources to help families learn about and manage their infant's, child's or youth's pain. It lists resources for caregivers, children and youth, which can be accessed online or borrowed from the FSRC free of charge. Feel free to share this web page with patients and families.

For example, this guide features:

• Updated pain medication handouts, including opioids
• Information about pain assessment
• Videos and up-to-date information about acute and chronic pain
• Comfort approaches to minimize pain with clinical procedures
   

Family Resource Pain Guide

Kelty Mental Health Resource Centre

Kelty Mental Health helps families across the province navigate the mental health system, connect with peer support, and access resources and tools to support well-being.

Mycarepath website

The Mycarepath website provides education and resources to youth and their families on chronic pain.

Meg Foundation

Meg Foundation has many educational resources for empowering children and families to prevent and relieve pain. The foundation's mission is "to empower families with the pain management strategies, skills, and support they need to prevent and reduce pain".

Power Over Pain Portal

The Power Over Pain Portal is a source of online tools that provide resources and support for those with chronic pain to feel empowered in their coping journey. The site is geared towards youth and Canadian health-care providers.

Find current research for your practice with UpToDate.

Canadian Pain Task Force

Established in 2019, the task force provides advice to the Government of Canada regarding evidence and best practices for preventing and managing chronic pain. The task force has delivered three reports to Health Canada, one for each of the three elements of their mandate.

1. Chronic Pain in Canada: Laying a foundation for action
2. Working Together to Better Understand, Prevent and Manage Chronic Pain: What we heard (PDF)
3. An Action Plan for Pain in Canada (PDF)

The Lancet: Delivering transformative action in paediatric pain

The Lancet Child & Adolescent Health Commission presents four transformative goals: to make pain matter, understood, visible, and better. It sets out priorities for clinicians, researchers, funders and policy-makers, and calls for cross-sector collaboration to deliver the action needed to improve the lives of children and adolescents with pain.

Pain: The journal of the International Association for the Study of Pain

Pain is the journal from the International Association for the Study of Pain. It publishes articles on basic and applied science addressing pain-related topics.

Pain Reports

PAIN Reports is an official publication of the International Association for the Study of Pain (IASP). An open access multidisciplinary journal that publishes continuously, it promotes a global, rapid and readily accessible forum that advances clinical, applied and basic research on pain.

• Pain and Stress in Child Health
• Simplified Faces Scale
• Goldman's Innovative Virtual Reality Pain Lab
• BC Pain Research Network
• PIUO study: Optimizing the Management of Pain and Irritability in Children with Severe Neurological Impairments
• Post-operative pain study: External Fixator: Preventative multimodal analgesia for children undergoing lower limb reconstruction with external fixators; a prospective study of postoperative pain
• MBC questionnaire: Developing and Validating the Understanding Your Physical Symptoms Questionnaire