Pain management is an essential component to patient care and nursing procedures. Recognizing the detrimental effects of unrelieved pain, The Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations (JACHO) has recommended standards of pain management, especially with regard to assessment, monitoring and treatment (Harsoor, 2011). Research shows pain too often goes untreated, undertreated, or poorly assessed. In some settings, it has been found that pain has gone undertreated in up to 80% of patients (Walid et al, 2008). Children, the elderly, cancer patients, and postoperative patients are all populations that are at an increased risk for pain and subsequently poor pain management. Pain has a significant effect on a person’s mental status, …show more content…
A comprehensive and continuous pain assessment by the nursing staff contributes to early intervention of pain, decreased severity of acute pain, and may also prevent long-term effects (Vallerand et al, 2011). A comprehensive pain assessment should include detailed subjective questions, especially questions pertaining to pain intensity. Pain was given the title “the fifth vital sign” in 1999 by the Joint Commission (Glowacki, 2015). As a vital sign, pain must be carefully evaluated during assessment just as the other four vital signs are. Assessment of chronic pain should occur on a regular basis using a standardized method that can be translated to all nursing staff (Jablonski and Ersek, 2009). In a study conducted by Jablonski and Ersek (2009), findings revealed only 32% of the long-term care patients in the study were assessed weekly for pain. The same study also indicated adherence to evidence based guidelines for pain management was not consistently observed in documentation. Critical subjective pain characteristics assessed within the last 30 days were left out of 93% of patient charts. Jablonski and Ersek’s (2009) findings were consistent with several other studies of similar topic. These results provide confirmatory evidence that the assessment is the basis for a successful and effective pain management plan and is imperative to provide …show more content…
This falls back on the topic of educating nurses in pain management to assure evidence-based practice is used in association with the pain assessment. It appears nurses may only receive superficial exposure of pain education making them poorly equipped to control patient pain. As of 2013 only 1,672 registered nurses in the United States were certified in pain management (Glowacki, 2015). Patients should not be left in pain because of the registered nurse’s lack of knowledge. The optimal pain assessment should provide an overflow of information to make pain intervention decisions and provide optimal pain relief (Carlson,
pain is the usual cause for persons to look for treatment. Inadequate pain management can cause delay in healing process. It can also leads to prolonged hospital stay. The acute pain management theory describe how nurse can manage pain with minimal effects from the pharmacological interventions and use of alternative methods of pain management (Good &Moore, 1996) The main factors are in the management of pain are Pharmacological, non-pharmacological, patient participation, education and different interventions. Effective pain management involves the application of non-pharmacological interventions and usage of pain medications. (McEwen & Willis, 2014). The pain management theory deals with management of pain in daily basis. It offers the knowledge about alternate methods in pain
Research has shown that there are several organizations and active advocates who are working on pain management problems to face this public health issue. The following establishments involve: The American Academy of Pain Medicine, Institute of Medicine, and American Pain Society and many for-profit and nonprofit organizations are also working at different level towards pain management. Most specifically, the IOM has been devoted to studying pain and its consequences on individuals, the healthcare system, as well as on government (IOM, 2011).
Appropriate assessment and management of pain should be paramount to nurses working in the elderly care sector.
“Pain is much more than a physical sensation caused by a specific stimulus. An individual's perception of pain has important affective (emotional), cognitive, behavioral, and sensory components that are shaped by past experience, culture, and situational factors. The nature of the stimulus for pain can be physical, psychological, or a combination of both.” (Potter, Perry, Stockert, Hall, & Peterson, 2014 p. 141) As stated by Potter et al, the different natures of pain are dealt with differently depending on many factors. Knowing this, treating pain can be very difficult as there is no single or clear cut way of measuring it; “Even though the assessment and treatment of pain is a universally important health care issue,
What is pain? If you ask someone to tell you the definition of pain they will typically state something that hurts. Registered nurses should know the definition of pain and how it can be identified on their patients. However, Abdalrahim, Majali, Stomberg, and Bergbom (2010) propose that nurses did not receive adequate education in pain management and suggest the lack of knowledge hinders their ability to adequate control their patients’ pain. Therefore, the unethical treatment of pain can be traced back nurses.
This paper will examine the the nurses and pain assessment in the hospitalized patient. The paper will focus on pain and pain management and the need to assess pain. How much percentage of the population in the U.S. are experienced pain, and how much of the population abuse the pain medications. There are many barriers which hinder nurses from perform accurate pain assessment. These barriers are nurses experience, competence, perception and manipulation. Pain is subjective, but pain assessment tools and nurses’ perception may contraindicate with what the patients stated. Thus, the paper will try to find solution to accurate pain assessment during hospitalization, especially with abuse of opioid.
Nursing assessment is a substantial way of gathering physiological, psychological, spiritual, and emotional condition of the patient. It creates a whole picture of an individual and assist the health care providers to formulate a diagnosis. Assessing the comfort of the patient is equally important as taking the blood pressure or temperature. Pain is the fifth (5th) vital sign that is subjective in nature when performing an assessment of a patient. Various studies were conducted in finding the most appropriate evidence-based nursing practice in assessing and managing the pain of a cognitively impaired patient, whether it is acute or chronic or the underlying cause is cancer or post-operative incision. As emphasized by Song, Eaton, Gordon, Hoyle, and Doorenbos (2015), it is vital to ensure that “pain management is based on the best evidence” (p. 456). Perhaps knowing the causes of inability to assess and manage the pain in a cognitively impaired patient would give a clearer understanding of the practice.
As a student, it is important to build a foundation in implementing these guidelines, so that when they graduate, they can provide competent patient care. Nursing students perform pain assessments regularly while in clinical, so it is important to be familiar with the tools that the North Bay Regional Health Centre uses, so that when reporting findings it is with tools that the hospital approves of. It is also important to know a variety of tools and when it is appropriate to use each one. Performing comprehensive pain assessments and being aware of how the interprofessional team and/or patient has decided to manage potential pain can help form a basis for reference for future nurse. In future practice it is important to respect a patients wants in regards to pain management and to be able to implement both pharmacological and non-pharmacological pain management interventions.
This essay will aim to look at the main principles of cancer pain management on an acute medical ward in a hospital setting. My rational for choosing to look at this is to expend my knowledge of the chosen area. Within this pieces of work I will look to include physiological, psychological and sociological aspects of pain management.
Inadequately managed pain can lead to adverse physical and psychological patient outcomes for patients. Continuous, unrelieved pain can suppress the immune system and result in postsurgical infection and poor wound healing. Sympathetic activation can have negative effects on the cardiovascular, gastrointestinal, and renal systems, predisposing patients to adverse events such as cardiac ischemia and ileus. Pain control is importance to nursing care, unrelieved pain reduces patient mobility, resulting in complications such as deep vein thrombosis, pulmonary embolus, and pneumonia.
The first step of this model is to create a sense of urgency and to get the nurses motivated to change (Kotter, 1995). By explaining that data from the last quarter demonstrated an increase in rates of worsening pain, will communicate the “why now” of the QIP to the nurses. Additional education about the responsibility and accountability nurses have in accurately assessing, managing and documenting pain will assist in
In the context of the caring relationship, nurses perform a primary role in the assessment and management of pain and other
Nursing is the holistic helping of persons with their self-care activities in relation to their health. I agree Vargina Henderson in her definition of nursing and nurses role, According to Henderson, 1966 “Nursing is primarily assisting the individual in the performance of those activities contributing to health and its recovery, or to a peaceful death”. Varginia Handerson, 1964 stated that “the nurse must get inside the skin of each her patient in order to know what he needs”. from this statement I conclude that nurses play an important role in promoting patient quality of care. Nurses play an important role to promote pain management practices for patients, a critical component of the nurse’s role in pain management is pain assessment, medications administration, organizing and delivering patient care activities, advocating for patient rights, educating patients and contact with physicians regarding changes in patient conditions; these nursing functions are critical in the management of pain. So, we can’t imagine nursing discipline without nursing
The most common reason that people seek medical care is pain, and pain is the leading cause of disability (Peterson & Bredow, 2013, p. 51; National Institute of Health, 2010). Pain is such an important topic in healthcare that the United States congress “identified 2000 to 2010 as the Decade of Pain Control and Research” (Brunner L. S., et al., 2010, p. 231). Unfortunatelly, patients are reporting a small increase in satisfaction with the pain management while in the hospital (Bernhofer, 2011). Pain assessment and treatment can be complex since nurses do not have a tool to quantify it. Pain is considered the fifth vital sign, however, we do not have numbers to guide our interventions. Pain is a subjective expirience that cannot be shared easily. Since nurses spend more time with patients in pain than any other healthcare provider, nurses must have a clear understanding of the concept of pain (Brunner, et al., 2010). Concept analysis’ main objective is to clarify ideas, to enhance critical thinking, and to promote communication (Rodgers & Knafl, 2000). This paper will examine the concept of pain using Wilson’s Steps of Concept Analysis (Rodgers & Knafl, 2000).
The International Association for the Study of Pain defines pain as “an unpleasant sensory and emotional experience associated with actual or potential tissue damage, or described in terms of such damage” (1979). Pain is actually the culprit behind warranting a visit to a physician office for many people (Besson, 1999). Notoriously unpleasant, pain could also pose a threat as both a psychological and economic burden (Phillips, 2006). Sometimes pain does happen without any damage of tissue or any likely diseased state. The reasons for such pain are poorly understood and the term used to describe such type of pain is “psychogenic pain”. Also, the loss of productivity and daily activity due to pain is also significant. Pain engulfs a trillion dollars of GDP for lost work time and disability payments (Melnikova, 2010). Untreated pain not only impacts a person suffering from pain but also impacts their whole family. A person’s quality of life is negatively impacted by pain and it diminishes their ability to concentrate, work, exercise, socialize, perform daily routines, and sleep. All of these negative impacts ultimately lead to much more severe behavioral effects such as depression, aggression, mood alterations, isolation, and loss of self-esteem, which pose a great threat to human society.