Evaluation of a Pain Management Education Program and Operational Guideline on Nursing Practice, Attitudes, and Pain Management

Abstract

Nurses lack adequate pain management knowledge, which can result in poorly managed postsurgical pain. This study aimed to develop, implement, and evaluate pain management education and operational guidelines to improve nursing knowledge and pain management. This quality improvement project employed convenience samples of surgical oncology nurses and postoperative patients. The intervention involved an online module, live education, and operational guideline for pain management. Nurses completed pre- and postintervention practice and attitudes surveys. Random chart reviews of intravenous narcotic administrations the day before discharge were completed to evaluate whether narcotic administration changed after intervention. Readmissions and Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems data were collected to determine whether the intervention influenced patient satisfaction. A statistically significant improvement in nursing practice and intravenous narcotic administrations demonstrated changes to pain management practices employed by the nursing staff. Although not statistically significant, fewer pain-related readmissions occurred postintervention. Findings demonstrate that targeted pain management continuing education, paired with operational guidelines, improves nursing practice and decreases intravenous narcotic administrations prior to discharge. J Contin Educ Nurs. 2018;49(4):178-185.

<p>Knowledge and Attitudes of Ethiopian Nursing Staff Regarding Post-Operative Pain Management: A Cross-Sectional Multicenter Study</p>

“…Undertreated postoperative pain is often associated with delayed mobility leading to delayed wound healing and deep vein thrombosis, pneumonia, chronic pain, coronary ischemia, myocardial infarction, depressed immune function. All of these affect economic and medical conditions, such as extended hospital stay, re-admissions, and patient dissatisfaction with medical care 6,9,10. However, optimal postoperative management facilitates early hospital discharge and reduces postoperative complications thereby increases patient satisfaction 11.…”

Addressing Educational Needs in Managing Complex Pain in Cancer Populations: Evaluation of APAM: An Online Educational Intervention for Nurses

“…These findings are consistent with prior studies showing that online learning can be effective in improving nurses' knowledge on pain assessment and management. 34,35 The median years of oncology practice of the participants was 3 years. While nurses reported varying degrees of knowledge and confidence assessing and managing cancer pain, nearly all reported lack of confidence in managing intractable pain, including nurses working in academic hospitals and in cancer programs.…”

“…Second, Bonkowski et al 34 designed a targeted pain management intervention that included an online module, live education, application with a real-life case scenario with practice guidelines for pain management. A self-report survey of the 25 nurses showed significant improvements in pain practices, such as providing patient education, pain assessments, and accuracy of equianalgesic conversions.…”

Pain Management in the Context of a Nursing Help Line: Identification of Needs, Development of a Continuing Education Activity, and Evaluation of its Impact

“…The total scores for the multiple response times on the PMAQ-F and TPMI-F underwent a non-parametric test, the Wilcoxon signed-rank test, on the difference between the means of two dependent variables. The significance level was set at p<0.05 for all the statistical tests, except for the analysis of knowledge and beliefs, for which a significance level of p<0.017 was set because of the Bonferroni correction applicable when there are multiple comparisons (Bland & Altman, 1995). Data from the last focus groups (T2) and individual clinical support meeting were analyzed using the qualitative method proposed by Miles et al (2014), as described above.…”

“…Moreover, CE adapted to phone help line context appears to be nonexistent. CE is known to help update professional knowledge and skills in various intervention fields (Bonkowski, De Gagne, Cade, & Bulla, 2018;Devonshire & Nicholas, 2018). Many authors maintain, however, that it is necessary to evaluate nurses' learning needs prior to a CE activity in order to obtain positive outcomes and lasting changes in practices (Gallagher, 2007;Griscti & Jacono, 2006;Holloway, Arcus, & Orsborn, 2018;Hudson et al, 2018).…”