Where are we in change?

Kurt Lewin's stages of change included unfreezing or unlearning, moving, and refreezing or relearning. It is this change theory I feel best applies to the topic of pain management in infants and toddlers during routine immunizations. I know many colleagues who state that infants and toddlers need to feel that pain and learn to cope with it, or that the pain involved is minor and short lived, or my favorite that the pain they feel is a normal part of life. Is pain a normal part of life. All throughout our nursing training we are taught to manage individuals pain and to understand the differences between acute and chronic pain. We spend time learning the different methods for pain reduction. As a society we look for ways to manage pain. I wonder then what is the difference between the pain associated with an immnization injection and the pain associated with some childhood illnesses. Do they not still develop the same response? Lewin's stage of unfreezing is applicable to the stage nursing is at right now with pain management in infants, toddlers and children. We are having to relearn, rethink our methods of pain control. It is a heated topic being studied worldwide with many researchers discovering that simple measures such as distraction make a long lasting difference in pain management for children. So back to Lewin's theory, we are unfreezing, relearning our approach to pain management, looking for the move to correcting the lack of understanding for our shorter ones.