The association between shared perceptions of pain experienced by the mother and child is being widely studied for the purpose of developing effective management plans. In that view, the purpose of the study was to explore the experiences of post-operative pain and coping of children who had undergone major surgery and its perception among their mothers using a grounded theory research design. The research questions that were employed to assess those experiences were “What is the nature of pain experience and coping among children undergone surgery?”, “What is the mothers’ perception of pain experience and coping of their children undergone surgery?”, “What are the developmental differences in pain experience among children? Qualitative In-depth interview was conducted with seven children between the ages of 6-15 years who had undergone major surgery were selected using purposive sampling along with their mothers in the pediatric surgery ward of Kasturba Hospital, Manipal. Synthetic approach to grounded theory was used for data analysis. The children described sensory quality of post-operative pain while older children elaborated using metaphors and their affective component reflected fear and anger. A vulnerability-dependency model with core categories of “perceived vulnerability” and “mother seen as an omnipotent figure” was developed based on the cognitive vulnerability model of fear. Eight categories were identified with regarding children’s post- operative pain experience, including aversion to medical setup, fear of surgery, inclination to avoid painful situations, poor pain related self-efficacy, victimizing self and expressing helplessness, pain as a barrier, and mother as an omnipotent figure. Pain management experience revealed problem-focused coping which included active coping mechanisms such as seeking pharmacological support, distraction, behavioral methods and seeking social support for instrumental reasons. Three categories emerged from mothers’ perception of child’s pain, namely, casualty of child’s pain, mothers’ understanding of child’s pain and concern for psychological distress of the child. In addition to providing support with respect to problem solving, social support for emotional reasons was also provided. Findings have implication for improvement in pain management for children and their parents as well as identification of cognitive and affective factors in pain.

Keywords: post-surgical pain, pain experience, coping, children, grounded theory