Pediatric Patient Controlled Analgesia

  • Category:

    Pain Treatment - Pharmacologic.

  • Age Range:

    Age 01y-11y (Child), Age 12y-18y (Adolescent), Age 18y+ (Young Adult).

  • Tags:

    Opioid, PCA.

  • Type of Document:

    Education for Parents/Community, Nursing Guideline.

  • Type of Pain:

    Acute, Cancer pain, Critical care, Post-operative.

  • Author:

    Advocate Children’s Hospital, Oak Lawn, IL, USA

The purpose of this policy is to establish guidelines for the care of the pediatric patient receiving Patient Controlled Analgesia (PCA) and to provide patients with a mechanism to control their own pain medication administration. Patient Controlled Analgesia (PCA) is a method of providing analgesic
medications intravenously to patients using a portable infusion pump that allows the patient to self-administer analgesic medication by pushing a button on the hand-held control device.