Knowledge and Attitude Regarding Children’s Pain and Perceived Barriers to Optimal Pain Management among Staff Nurses
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Abstract
Pain is one of most common adverse stimuli experienced by children, occurring as a result of injury, illness and necessary medical procedure. So assessment of pain in children is very important.The objectives of the study were to assess the knowledge and attitude of staff nurses regarding children’s pain management and the perceived barriers to optimal pain management in children. Also to find out the association of knowledge and attitude with the selected demographic variables. This observational analytical survey study was conducted among 120 staff nurses working in pediatric care units.Subjects were selected by using convenience sampling. Knowledge and attitude was assessed by using a semi structured questionnaire and the perceived barriers were identified by using a structured checklist. Research showed that among 120 study participants more than half of subjects had average knowledge (58.3%) and (41.7%) had poor knowledge whereas majority of the subjects had a neutral attitude ( 95.8% ) and only ( 4.2% ) had negative attitude regarding children’s pain management. Among 21 barriers, most frequently reported 5 barriers were identified. Majority of the study participants reported delay in orders being processed by the pharmacy as barrier (89.2% ). Rest of the barriers reported were my concern about children becoming tolerant to analgesics ( 76.7% ), delay in orders being processed by the pharmacy (62.5% ), my concern about side effects of medications (53.3% ) and patient’s reluctance to report or rate pain ( 48.3% ).There was no significant association between the knowledge knowledge scores and attitude scores with socio personal and professional variables. A nurse’s knowledge and attitude can affect his or her ability to adequately provide pediatric pain management. Hence there is an exigent need for assessing the knowledge and attitude towards children’s pain management