Assessment of nurses’ knowledge and practices towards pain assessment in critically ill patients at CHUK (2016-2017)

Abstract

Critically ill patients have the habit to develop moderate to severe pain related to trauma or recent surgery, which reduces their well being. When they are ineffectively treated, acute pain can be complicated into severe pain including the development of chronic pain syndromes. Pain is the principal symptom that leads people to seek health care. Many disciplines are involved in pain assessment and management; however, nurses play a crucial role in pain assessment, relief and evaluation of pain. Many critically ill adult patients experience significant pain during hospitalization. In the intensive care unit (ICU), for example, more than 30% have significant pain at rest, and more than 50% have significant pain during routine care, such as turning, endotracheal suctioning, and wound care (Herr & Mcaffery 2011). Similar to other aspects of care, adequate pain management is of particular importance to ICU and ER patients (Onwong, 2014), to achieve ultimate comfort. Methodology: descriptive cross-sectional study design was used. The study used a quantitative, convenient methods have been used; data was analyzed using IBM SPSS statistic 20. Results were abridged using frequencies and percentages, and presented using figures, tables and text, cross tabulation was made to see the correlation between data. Results presentation and discussion: the results have been presented in tables, The total score knowledge is on the mean of 98%, 58 out of 61 participants have got the knowledge beyond 14 to 26 of mean. And the total marks were 26, only 2out of 26 have got under 13 which considered as the low marks. The majority of respondent (67.2%) do not have adequate current knowledge on pain assessment, only 32.8% have said that they have adequacy of current knowledge on pain assessment. The majority (86.9%) assess that patients are able to communicate; in addition (86.3%) said that they use pain assessment tools. Majority of respondents (68.9%) did not received education on pain assessment and management. v The majority of respondents 78% have the low practices scores as 44 out 57 of respondents have the marks which are under 18 out 35 marks, only 22% have got the marks beyond 18 out 35. Conclusion and recommendations: Pain assessment and management of critically patients is one of the responsibilities of a nurse. Nurses of CHUK have information on pain assessment but majority of them (67.2%) do not have adequate current knowledge on pain assessment. Nurses know very well the importance of using an assessment tool however few (44%) of them do not consider pain assessment tool during the management of the patients. There is need to continue to increase professional development on pain assessment, training and continuous training are need so that nurses have full information on pain assessment and management. The ministry of education and health have to have to ensure that the policy on pain assessment and management is strengthened and well known.