Pain management nursing : official journal of the American Society of Pain Management Nurses
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The progression of acute to chronic pain, also known as pain chronification, remains incompletely understood. Biologic factors involved in this transition include central sensitization, neuroplastic changes, altered pain modulation, and changes to the "neuromatrix." Chronic pain may involve irreversible pathophysiologic changes, so interrupting the cascade of events that allows acute pain to advance to chronic pain is of crucial importance. This involves recognition and prompt treatment of acute pain, better awareness and application of evidence-based guidelines on pain management by all clinicians (not just pain specialists), and patient education. By interrupting nociceptive input in acute pain conditions, it might be possible to prevent transition to chronic pain syndromes.
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Procedural pain management is an underused practice in children. Despite the availability of efficacious treatments, many nurses do not provide adequate analgesia for painful interventions. Complementary therapies and nonpharmacologic interventions are additionally essential to managing pain. ⋯ Quality improvement increases nursing utilization of procedural pain treatments. Although increasing nursing knowledge improves pediatric pain management, it appears that nursing empowerment and protocol implementation increase nursing compliance more than just education alone. Nurses providing pain management can enhance their individual practice with quality improvement measures that may increase nursing adherence to institutional and nationally recommended pediatric procedural pain management guidelines.
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Pain is still undertreated among hospitalized patients. Recently, patient satisfaction with pain management has received significant attention. This field has not yet been explored among Jordanian patients. ⋯ Also, the Arabic version of the APS-POQ was found to be reliable among the Jordanian population. Findings of this study are similar to those reported by earlier studies in other countries and support the need for applying the caring attitude in managing patients' reports of having pain. This study is the first in Jordan, opening the door for future studies to be conducted in this important field.
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Phantom limb pain is a puzzling phenomenon, from the viewpoints of both the patient experiencing it and the clinician trying to treat it. This review focuses on psychologic aspects in the origin of the PLP and critically evaluates the various psychologic interventions in the management of PLP. Whereas pharmacologic and surgical treatments often fail, psychologic interventions may hold promise in managing PLP. ⋯ The outcome reports for psychologic therapies have been mainly positive. The results of the majority of these studies show a reduction in PLP. However, the lack of well controlled and randomized trials makes it difficult to draw firm conclusions regarding the effectiveness of these psychologic therapies in the treatment of PLP.
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Multicenter Study
Jordanian nurses knowledge and attitude regarding pain management.
Optimal pain management requires knowledgeable and trained nurses. The aim of this study is to investigate nurses' knowledge and attitudes regarding pain treatment in Jordan. The sample included 211 nurses from 4 hospitals in Jordan. ⋯ Nurses with previous pain education got higher mean scores on the questionnaire. Jordanian nurses expressed a lower level of pain knowledge than that reported worldwide. Continuous education and reforming undergraduate curricula to address pain management are recommended.