Attitudes and Practices of Nurses’ Regarding the First 24 Hours Post- operative Pain Management in Teaching Hospital, Rathnapura

Abstract

Surgical patients experience a great intensity of pain during the first 24 hours of surgery due to various reasons including tissue damage during the surgery. Therefore, assessing nurses’ attitudes and practices on assessment and management of pain especially in post-operative units is essential because nurses are the professionals who play a key role in managing patients’ pain. A descriptive cross-sectional study was conducted among 135 government registered nurses in surgical units, Teaching Hospital, Rathnapura. Cluster sampling technique was performed and self-administered questionnaire was used. Ethical approval was obtained from the Ethical Clearance Committee, University of Colombo. The study participants were in the attitude that health workers should not encourage patients to tolerate pain (58.5%), believed non- pharmacological methods are not effective in managing post- operative pain (53.3%), ineffectively treated pain may not lead to chronic pain in future (58.5%), by using placebo injections health professionals can identify whether the pain is real (51.1%), health professionals’ religious background affects for the attitude towards patients pain and suffers (55.6%) and if the patient does not complain pain, continuation of analgesics within first 24 hours is not necessary (64.4%). Of them 79.3% believed that patients should be individually assessed to determine cultural influences in pain and 97% are revealing effective communication and therapeutic relationship are as essential components in post-operative pain management. Although the pain assessment scale indicates the most accurate judgment regarding intensity of patient’s pain (66.7%), only less than 50% of the participants were assessed the pain using a pain scale. Almost all the nurses follow up the post-operative patients’ pain after administration of analgesics (97.8% reassess, 97% observe, 98.5% consider safety measures). However, whether the doctor has prescribed fixed schedule of pain medication, many of them follow that according to their assessment (45.9%). It is recommended to improve nurses’ attitudes and practices regarding the first 24 hours post- operative pain assessment and pain management.