Crenças e percepções de fisioterapeutas brasileiros sobre dor na criança: estudo observacional transversal

Abstract

Introduction: Physical therapists' beliefs regarding health care for children are perceived in several clinical contexts, such as pain management, self-efficacy, social interaction, catastrophizing and physical activities. Beliefs may be related to common sense and may interfere with the behavior of physiotherapists. For this reason, it is essential to search for the mapping of Brazilian physiotherapists' beliefs and knowledge of their perceptions on the various aspects that encompass pain. Objective: To investigate beliefs and perceptions of Brazilian physical therapists about pain in children. Materials and methods: This is a cross-sectional observational study of the survey type, with a quantitative approach. Data were collected via an electronic form available on the Google Forms® platform, which contains objective and subjective questions divided by themes. Most of the objective questions had answers based on the Likert Scale. Participants were directed to different sections. Initially, the identification was made and, subsequently, several aspects about professional beliefs regarding pain in children were recorded. Results: We obtained a sample of 214 physiotherapists who met the eligibility criteria. Most of the sample is female (90.7%) and attends in the Northeast (34.6%) and Southeast (34.1%) regions. Most attend on a daily basis, predominantly privately (55.1%) with stricto sensu training (50%). In the percentage data analysis, we verified that the physiotherapists answered that they totally agreed with the statement in 50% of the questions (20); in the others, there were responses in similar amounts between partially agree and partially disagree. Most physiotherapists disagreed that it is normal for children to feel pain (73.4%) and agreed with the causal relationship between pain and structural injury (82.7%) and pain intensity (51.9%). They also agreed that children cannot manage the pain alone (56.5%) and that, when the child feels pain, the family should treat it better (47.2%). Conclusion: For most of the evaluated information, what the physiotherapists believed was in agreement with the findings found in the literature. However, physiotherapists believed that in relation to pain, there is no normality, existence of single causality, structural injury as a causal factor, propositional relationship only between structural injury and level of intensity, the non-relationship between parents and children with chronic pain and that the overprotective attitudes of the family towards the child, better treating the child who is in pain, these issues were identified as topics in which most physiotherapists believed.