Pain management nursing : official journal of the American Society of Pain Management Nurses
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Guidelines for postoperative pain treatment are based on patients' pain scores. Patients with an intermediate Numeric Rating Scale (NRS) score of 5 or 6 may consider their pain as either bearable or unbearable, which makes it difficult to decide on pain treatment because guidelines advise professionals to treat pain at NRS > 4. Educating patients in using an NRS score for pain might improve adequate pain treatment. ⋯ In the intervention group, patients had significantly more knowledge and lower barriers to pain management compared with the control group. We did not find a statistically significant reduction in discordant pain scores when comparing the intervention group with the control group. However, patients in the intervention group had significantly lower pain scores, lower barriers, and more knowledge of pain treatment than patients in the control group.
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Chronic pain is a major public health problem that changes lives and has devastating consequences for the person experiencing the pain, the family, and society. Living with chronic pain is not easy, especially in South Africa where the public health care system, serving 80% of the population, fails people suffering from chronic pain. The purpose of the study was to explore how experiencing chronic pain influenced the daily lives of underprivileged patients receiving nursing care at the palliative care clinic serving a resource-poor community in Tshwane, South Africa. ⋯ Participants' experience of pain tells of severe suffering that hindered them in performing activities of daily living. Participants were confronted with total pain and were caught in a vicious circle where pain was responsible for severe suffering and their suffering added to their pain. However, strong religious beliefs improved pain and gave hope for the future.
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Pain is a symptom pediatric nurses commonly encounter in the hospital setting. Untreated pain can lead to adverse physiologic and psychological effects. This study examines in-hospital pain assessment methods nurses report using and assesses challenges, difficulties, and barriers nurses report to assessing pain in hospitalized children. ⋯ Nurses included comments stressing the importance of pain assessments and their frustration with the current validated measures available. This study adds to a growing body of literature demonstrating a gap between recommended pediatric pain assessment guidelines and reported practice, with nurses showing a resistance to relying on single-item or unidimensional measures to assess and evaluate the rich and complex pain experience. A multidimensional approach involving child self-report, parent report, and nurses' own overall impression based on clinical assessment skills of pain is discussed.
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Adherence monitoring for prescription opioid use is a clinical imperative for individuals prescribed opioids for chronic pain. Urine drug testing (UDT) provides objective evidence for prescription opioid adherence, as recommended by national guidelines to be part of adherence monitoring. The aim of this study was to describe prescription opioid adherence using UDT results in chronic pain patients and to examine the association between demographic characteristics and adherence to their prescribed opiate regimens. ⋯ Patients' age, pain level, sex, ethnicity, and injury compensation were not associated with UDT results. UDT results could be useful to educate and guide patients on the proper use of controlled medications. Results from UDT are highly contextual and easily misinterpreted, requiring comparison with a variety of clinical indicators over time before deciding if there is adherence to a prescribed opiate regimen for individuals with chronic pain.
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For hospital executives and clinicians to improve pain management, organizations must examine the current pain experience of in-patients beyond simply measuring patient satisfaction. The aim of this study was to quantify the prevalence of pain among adult in-patients and the degree of interference pain had on daily activities. A descriptive, cross-sectional study was undertaken in a 530 bed tertiary care, teaching hospital in central Canada. ⋯ Significant positive correlations were found between pain intensity ratings and pain interference on all daily activities (p < 0.001). Pain prevalence remains high with a significant relationship between pain and activities of daily living. The study provides baseline data to direct future initiatives at improving pain management.