• J Clin Nurs · Jul 2013

    Certified nursing assistants' perception of pain in people with dementia: a hermeneutic enquiry in dementia care practice.

    • Christina Karlsson, Birgitta Sidenvall, Ingrid Bergh, and Marie Ernsth-Bravell.
    • Department of Nursing, School of Health Sciences, Jönköping University, Jönköping, Sweden. christina.karlsson@his.se
    • J Clin Nurs. 2013 Jul 1; 22 (13-14): 1880-9.

    Aims And ObjectivesTo interpret certified nursing assistants' perception of pain in people with dementia in nursing care practice.BackgroundDetection and understanding of pain in people with dementia remains a challenge due to their difficulty in verbalising their pain. Nursing assistants provide daily nursing care and therefore play a vital role in pain detection. Nevertheless, pain research from the nursing assistants' perspective is sparse.DesignA qualitative approach within the interpretive tradition was adopted.MethodsIndividual interviews with twelve certified nursing assistants, all working in dementia care, were conducted and interpreted using philosophical hermeneutics.ResultsNursing assistants' perception of pain is on three levels. Each level consists of a theme. The first theme 'Being in the facing phase' refers to the initial perception of the person's expressions. The second theme 'Being in the reflecting phase' means ability to reflect more deeply on one's perception, together with other colleagues and next of kins. The third theme 'Being in the acting phase' means perception arising from preventive and protective care focusing on contributing to well-being. The themes served as a basis for comprehensive understanding, where perception of pain arises from closeness, compassion and dialogue based on personhood, accompanied by professional knowledge of pain and dementia.ConclusionNursing assistants' perception of pain is based on ethical concerns and on their own subjective pain experiences rather than on medical skills. Their perception derives from fundamental values that are important aspects of nursing care. Interdisciplinary solidarity may strengthen cooperation amongst CNAs and RNs to achieve best pain management practice.Relevance To Clinical PracticeAttention to nursing assistants' perception of pain needs to be highlighted when they are front-line staff and have developed important pain detection skills. Their skills are essential complements and must be used in the development of pain management in dementia care practice.© 2013 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

      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…