Effects of ‘pain‐advisers’: district nurses’ opinions regarding their own knowledge, management and documentation of patients in chronic pain

Abstract

This study investigated whether district nurses' opinions changed after the education and introduction of district nurses as 'pain-advisers' at primary health care centres (PHCCs) regarding working conditions and satisfaction with pain control management at their PHCCs, their own knowledge of pain control and satisfaction with their own pain control management, pain assessment and nursing documentation of patients with chronic pain conditions. A study area (SA) with five PHCCs and a control area (CA) with seven PHCCs were selected. In the SA, 28 and in the CA, 25 district nurses answered a questionnaire both before and after the introduction of the 'pain-advisers' into the SA. The district nurses in both areas in 1996 and 1998 considered many aspects of pain management to be unsatisfactory. According to the district nurses in the SA, several statistically significant improvements were achieved after the introduction of the 'pain-advisers'; more district nurses reported that pain policies or other written information were now available at their PHCCs, that they were more satisfied with present overall routines at their PHCCs, that a better pain control was applied at their PHCCs regarding patients with leg ulcers, that they themselves to a greater extent performed individual pain assessments of the patients and that they more often used pain visual analogue scales to assess the patients' pain and to evaluate the results of the pain treatment. They also reported an increased satisfaction with their own nursing documentation. Although much remains to be done, it must be acknowledged that the 'pain-advisers', with relatively small resources, managed to make significant improvements.

Evaluating nursing documentation – research designs and methods: systematic review

“…Comparisons were made before and after a nursing theory intervention (Kärkkäinen & Eriksson 2005), the implementation of nursing practice standards (Considine & Potter 2006), an educational intervention (Nilsson & Willman 2000, Dalton et al. 2001, Törnkvist et al. 2003, Barton et al.…”

The 75‐year‐old persons' self‐reported health conditions: a knowledge base in the field of preventive home visits

“…To facilitate good health there is a need to identify those persons, as shown in an earlier study of ours (Tornkvist et al . ), by bringing up the question even if these persons do not self‐report experiencing any pain. It is well known that older persons do not always tell health care professionals about their pain problems (Blomberg et al .…”

The Enduring Need for the Pain Resource Nurse (PRN) Training Program

“…Nurses who attended pain education programs have reported better understanding of pain, had improved skills regarding assessment and documentation of pain, and reported more confidence and satisfaction with caring for patients in pain [10][11][12][13][14][15]. Evidence also suggests that patient pain scores improved when cared for by nurses with adequate pain management knowledge and confidence [11,12,16].…”