Use of Pain Assessment Tools Among Nurses Caring For Children in a Selected District Hospital in Rwanda

Abstract

Background: The majority of the children will experience pain in their childhood. In hospitals, nurses are the first caretakers for children who are experiencing pain, and with the use of pain assessment tools, the nurses could enhance their ability to take care of the children with pain. Aim: To assess the use of pain assessment tools among nurses caring for children at in a selected district hospital in Rwanda. Methods: The descriptive cross-sectional design was used. The data was collected from 153 nurses who took care of children under 15 years of age in pediatric ward, surgical ward, emergency department, neonatology, outpatient department and theater at Kabgayi district hospital from southern province, Rwanda. The data was collected using pretested questionnaires and by checking patients’ files. The collected data was analyzed using the SPSS Statistics version 26. The descriptive statistics were used to summarize the data. Bivariate analysis and statistical significance were used to infer the association between use of pain assessment tools and other variables. Results: This research identified that a good proportion (60.4%) of the nurses at Kabgayi district hospital used the pain assessment tools with the verbal pain rating scale being the most frequent used tool. However, the study also demonstrated that nurses (83.8%) had inadequate resources to facilitate them in the effective use of these tools. The review of patient files indicated that nurses needed to improve on documentation when using the pain assessment tool. The use of pain assessment tools was associated with the nurses’ working shift (p=0.022). The nurses who worked during the day used the pain assessment tools the most. On contrary, nurses who worked during the nights seemed to not use the pain assessment tools frequently (35.1%). Conclusion: The findings indicate that the hospital should provide enough support to the nurses to improve the effective use of pain assessment tools. Furthermore, there is a need for training for nurses to start using other type of pain assessment tools such as FLACC and Wong-Baker faces pain rating scale.