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Abstract

Over the last few decades, there has been substantial growth in pediatric pain research, yet children continue to endure pain despite this well-established body of evidence. Assessing, treating, and managing pain in children is complex because of the developmental issues involved in assessing and understanding the child’s pain, the nature and the structure of health care professionals’ work, the immense and varied influences on health care professionals’ decisions, the heuristics or mental shortcuts that health care professionals use to cope in high-velocity environments overloaded with information, the added challenges with children with developmental delays, and a host of personal attitudes and beliefs about pain. These factors and others contribute to poor pain management in children. We believe, however, that the core challenge to improving pediatric pain management is knowledge translation. Rather than an issue of knowledge deficit or lack of research (although these are nontrivial), we argue that the core issue is a failure to put what we already know to use. In this chapter, we discuss knowledge translation challenges in relation to pediatric pain management and to offer possible solutions to closing the gap between science and practice.

Key Words  Knowledge transfer - knowledge translation - pain management - research utilization

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