Background: Although patient self-report is the gold standard for pain, many patients admitted to the ICU are unable to communicate and express their pain. Therefore, the nurse must have special abilities to diagnose and manage pain in such conditions. The aim of this study was to assess nurses’ knowledge, attitude, and performance regarding pain management of non-verbal critically ill adult patients in intensive care units.
Methods: This cross-sectional descriptive study was conducted from February to May 2020 among nurses working in four national referral hospitals in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. The study sample included 202 intensive care unit (ICU) nurses who were recruited by census. The data was collected using pre-validated questionnaires including the “Knowledge and Attitudes Survey Regarding Pain tool” (KASRP), and a performance tool by Eunkyoung, and analyzed using Pearson chi-square, t- test and Spearman correlation coefficient in SPSS version 20.0. The significance level was set at ( P<0.05).
Results: The mean knowledge and attitude score was 13.26 ±2.75 indicating inadequate knowledge and negative attitude. The mean performance score was 2.08 ±0.16 indicating low performance. There was no significant relationship between nurses’ knowledge and attitude and their performance according to t-test (H = 2.84, P = 0.09) and Spearman correlation coefficient (r = 0.12, P = 0.102). No significant relationships were found between the nurses’ knowledge and attitude and performance and their demographic characteristics.
Conclusions: Planning to increase knowledge and improve the attitude and performance of ICU nurses for better pain management of non-verbal patients seems necessary. It is recommended to evaluate the pain of these patients based on the observation of behavioral indicators of pain and choose the appropriate tool for pain assessment.
نوع مطالعه:
پژوهشي |
موضوع مقاله:
عمومى دریافت: 1401/8/8 | پذیرش: 1402/6/7 | انتشار: 1402/10/20