Dr Manuela Sapochnik is a consultant
clinical psychologist at Starship children’s hospital and an honorary lecturer
at Auckland University. Manuela has a particular interest in working with
children and their families and with staff, on the management of procedural
anxiety, pain and trauma. Manuela has worked for 17 years in both the UK and in
New Zealand in research, teaching and clinical posts. In the UK she worked at
Great Ormond Street children’s hospital where she wrote and ran their first
adolescent pain management group. At Starship she has created a programme for
teaching procedural anxiety management skills to staff that has been rolled out
across the hospital and thorough teaching at Auckland University, for doctors,
nurses and allied health.
Preparing Children and their Families for Painful
Procedures at Starship
The timely management of procedural anxiety
has been repeatedly shown to have a highly significant impact on patients’
present and future physical and mental health outcomes. This short talk will
outline some very practical ideas that can be utilised by all members of staff in
service of that goal. These practices have been used at Starship over the last
2 years and have; increased both patient and staff satisfaction, are in line
with international best practice guidelines and require almost no extra resources
from our highly stretched services.
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