• Céline Gélinas, Melody Ross, Madalina Boitor, Sylvie Desjardins, Francine Vaillant, and Cécile Michaud.
• McGill University, Ingram School of Nursing, Montreal, Quebec, Canada; Centre for Nursing Research and Lady Davis Institute, Jewish General Hospital, Montreal, Québec, Canada; The Alan Edwards Center for Research on Pain, McGill University, Montreal, Quebec, Canada; Quebec Pain Research Network (QPRN); and Quebec Nursing Intervention Research Network (RRISIQ), Montreal, Quebec, Canada.
• Nurs Crit Care. 2014 Nov 1; 19 (6): 272-80.

BackgroundPerforming routine pain assessments with all intensive care unit (ICU) patients is strongly recommended in clinical practice guidelines. As many ICU patients are unable to self-report, the Critical-Care Pain Observation Tool (CPOT) is one of the two behavioural pain scales suggested for clinical use. Still, no study has described the evaluations of its use in ICU daily practice.ObjectiveTo describe the nurses' evaluation of the feasibility, clinical relevance and satisfaction with the CPOT use 12 months after its implementation in the ICU.MethodA descriptive design was used. It was conducted in the medical-surgical ICU of a university affiliated setting at Greenfield Park (Québec, Canada). A self-administered evaluation questionnaire including four sections (i.e. feasibility, clinical relevance, satisfaction and socio-demographic information) was completed by ICU nurses who were all trained to use the CPOT. The questionnaires were completed anonymously.ResultsA total of 38 ICU nurses returned their completed questionnaire (63% participation rate). Regarding its feasibility, the majority rated the CPOT as quick to use, simple to understand and easy to complete (92-100%). According to clinical relevance, close to 70% of ICU nurses acknowledged that the CPOT had influenced their practice, but lower results (<50%) were found for effective communication of pain assessment findings with the physicians and other health professionals. More than 80% of ICU nurses were satisfied with its daily use.ConclusionThe CPOT use was deemed feasible and relevant in daily practice as per the nurses' evaluations but did not allow an effective communication with other ICU care team members.Relevance To Clinical PracticeTraining should be offered to all members of the ICU care team, and other implementation strategies should be explored as well to ensure optimal uptake of a pain assessment approach which impacts on their decision-making process for pain management.© 2014 British Association of Critical Care Nurses.

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