LAUSR

Pain is a complex disorder and described as an unpleasant emotionalsensory experience due to actual or potential tissue damage or injury which requires urgent attention (Benoit, MartinMisenenir, Newman, Latimer, & Campbell-Yeo, 2017). Because of their continuous developing nervous system, infants are particularly susceptible to the consequences of pain and stress (Holsti, Grunau, & Shany, 2011) and their reactions to nociceptive stimuli differ from the adults (Hartley & Slater, 2014). Studies have indicated that poor management of infant pain can be associatedwith enduring neurological-behavioral changes, and developmental learning disabilities (Vinall et al., 2012). Examples of learning disabilities documented in the research include attention deficit disorder, poor executive function, and impaired visual –motor integration (Hall & Anand, 2014 p. 896). Additionally, repeated untreated pain in infants puts themat risk of augmented pain sensitivity and long-term changes in the programming of the pituitary-adrenal axis (cortisol levels) which also has an impact on health and neurodevelopmental outcomes (Holsti et al., 2011). In contrast, other research reveals unnecessary analgesic treatment prolongs the need for intubation, mechanical ventilation, difficulties with advancing enteral nutritional therapy, compromised brain growth, poor short-termmemory, and impaired socialization skills (Hall & Anand, 2014). Theoretically favorable pain assessment and management is an essential nursing priority for infants to improve neurodevelopmental outcomes. Due to poor outcomes associated with inadequate pain management in infants, researchers are exploringmultidimensional pain assessment tools. Researchers are finding promise in examining infant's cerebral reactions to painful stimuli and are hopeful that this will provide amore precisemeasurement of pain perception (Ranger, Johnston, Limperopoulos, Rennick, & duPlessis, 2011).