This study examines actions and opinions of nurses during pain assessment of hospitalised patients.
Employing the cross-sectional descriptive research design, 450 nurses were randomly selected from the Federal Teaching Hospital, Abakaliki, Ebonyi State capital. Also, questionnaires were administered and the reliability was established using test- retest technique with coefficient score of 0.86. Descriptive statistics of mean and percentage were used to analyse the qualitative data. The findings of this study revealed that nurses have positive opinions on pain assessment (3.65) and the results of nurses’ action during pain assessment of hospitalized patients is positive (3.35). It also indicated that nurses’ actions include: (i) asking patients to report to location, (ii) determining the intensity of the pain, quality, (iii) knowing the pattern alleviating factor, (iv) associated symptoms, (v) the nurse observes the coping resources, (vi) giving psychological therapy when patients complain of pain and (vii) the nurse document pain and action given and lastly, the only barrier to nurses’ pain assessment is that nurses have too many patients to care for. This study also shows that the level of nurses’ assessment of patients’ pain is low (2.86). It is therefore recommended that nurses should be given more training to sustain their knowledge and the number of patients to nurses should be reviewed for better care
- OGWA, | E. | T. | favourogwa@yahoo.com | 08035074128, NDIE, | E. | C. | chubike05@yahoo.com | 07066789961.
- Nurses' Actions; Pain Assessment; Patients; Teaching Hospital
- Lautech 10th Edition, Article 1-184e4465