• J Clin Nurs · Apr 2006

    A study of nurses' inferences of patients' physical pain.

    • Benita Wilson and Wilfred McSherry.
    • Faculty of Health and Social Care, The University of Hull, Hull, Yorkshire, UK. b.d.wilson@hull.ac.uk
    • J Clin Nurs. 2006 Apr 1; 15 (4): 459-68.

    AimThe aim of this study was to establish if postregistration education and clinical experience influence nurses' inferences of patients' physical pain.BackgroundPain is a complex, subjective phenomenon making it an experience that is elusive and difficult to define. Evaluation of an individual's pain is the product of a dynamic, interactive process that frequently results in ineffective pain management. Educating nurses should address the deficit, however the clinical environment is thought to be most influential in the acquisition of knowledge.DesignA series of vignettes was used to consider nurses' inferences of physical pain for six hypothetical patients; these were employed within a self-administered questionnaire that also addressed lifestyle factors of patients in pain, general attitudes and beliefs about pain management and general knowledge of pain control.MethodOne hundred questionnaires were distributed; 86 nurses returned the questionnaire giving a response rate of 86%. Following selection of the sample 72 nurses participated in the study: 35 hospice/oncology nurses (specialist) and 37 district nurses (general). Data analysis was carried out using SPSS and qualitative analysis of the written responses.ResultsThe specialist nurses tended to infer lower levels of physical pain than the general nurses when considering the patients in the vignettes.ConclusionEducation and clinical experience influence nurses' knowledge, attitudes and beliefs about pain. However, it would appear that the specialist nurses' working environment and knowledge base engenders a practice theory divide, resulting in desensitization to patients' physical pain.Relevance To Clinical PracticeIt is suggested that the specialist nurses use defence mechanisms to protect them from the conflict that arises from working within the clinical environment. These cognitive strategies have the potential to ease cognitive dissonance for the nurse, but may increase patient suffering.

      Pubmed     Full text   Copy Citation     Plaintext  

      Add institutional full text...

    Notes

     
    Knowledge, pearl, summary or comment to share?
    300 characters remaining
    help        
    You can also include formatting, links, images and footnotes in your notes
    • Simple formatting can be added to notes, such as *italics*, _underline_ or **bold**.
    • Superscript can be denoted by <sup>text</sup> and subscript <sub>text</sub>.
    • Numbered or bulleted lists can be created using either numbered lines 1. 2. 3., hyphens - or asterisks *.
    • Links can be included with: [my link to pubmed](http://pubmed.com)
    • Images can be included with: ![alt text](https://bestmedicaljournal.com/study_graph.jpg "Image Title Text")
    • For footnotes use [^1](This is a footnote.) inline.
    • Or use an inline reference [^1] to refer to a longer footnote elseweher in the document [^1]: This is a long footnote..

    hide…