Effective Pain Management

The phenomenon of Interest: Pain is the main symptom that leads people to seek health care. Many disciplines are involved in pain management; however, nurses play a pivotal role in the assessment, relief, and evaluation of pain. Effective pain management is important to all individuals suffering from pain whether acute or chronic irrespective of their age, race or gender. The main reason for this has been a lack of adequate knowledge and attitudes from the nurses as indicated by previous literature. Ineffective pain management affects the lives of those involved negatively in different ways. The target population of this study is Registered Nurses. This study will focus on the registered nurses’ knowledge and attitudes towards the elderly population
pain management. Nurses are in a better position as compared to other professionals in healthcare to effectively manage pain due to their close relationship with patients. Knowledge of pain combined with positive attitudes is the key to successful pain management. The purpose of the study is to describe the level of knowledge and attitudes of registered nurses working in different health care settings. The goal was, therefore, to find out the registered nurses‟ level of knowledge and attitudes towards pain management and to highlight the factors that may affect their decision-making process in managing pain. This is intended to help towards the achievement of effective management of pain among the patients/clients by strengthening the nurses‟ level of knowledge and attitudes.

Situational Context: Pain management should be a priority based on the relevance of the topic to the clinical practice.
It is evidenced by the research that certain issues that pertain to pain management process have not been adhered to, as it should. It can be acknowledged that pain management is a nursing role, and nurses spend more time with patients more than other professionals. Therefore, they should be equipped with the necessary knowledge to aid in the provision of services to the patients. Nurses should also be encouraged to develop the right professional attitudes to enhance their work and avoid problems. Hence, educating nurses on the importance of such issues and its effects to the patients are vital in this
study
Literature Scan: A literature review was conducted by searching a variety of databases and search engines.
These databases include Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature (CINAHL), MEDLINE, PubMed, and the search engine Google. In regards to the research articles, the keywords used include; pain, pain management, nurses’ knowledge and nurses’ attitudes. The library databases used were; Elsevier, Science direct, Pubmed, Ovid, EBSCO and CINAHL. The articles were chosen according to their relevance with the research topic. A review of the literature shows there is relevance in pain control among patients, nurses, other healthcare professionals, and family members. Various aspects of perceptions of pain management have been studied and have shown that inadequate assessment, individual variability in the experience and exhibition of pain, poor communication among members of the health care team and their patients, negative attitudes toward the use of pain medications, and misconceptions about pain are the most frequently cited factors accounting for unsatisfactory pain treatment. Patients have a right to pain relief; however, the barriers to assessing and managing patient pain in practice have not as yet been
overcome.