Nurses and midwives pain knowledge improves under the influence of an acute pain service

Knowledge and Attitude of Midwifery Students on Oral Health Care

Midwifery students can have an important role in transferring oral health care information to expecting mothers. The aim of this study was to assess the effect of an educational intervention on knowledge and attitudes of midwifery students on oral health in pregnancy. Study population consisted of 60 midwifery students in a Midwifery School in Iran who were randomly allocated into case and control groups. Self-administered questionnaires were distributed before, immediately after the intervention and also three months later. The validity and reliability of the questionnaire was confirmed at the beginning. Mean total pre-test knowledge scores from total 10 in the interventional and control groups were 4.63 ± 0.25 (Standard Error, SE) and 4.79 ± 0.31 (SE) respectively. After three months scores reached to 8.87 ± 0.15 (SE) in the interventional and 5.57 ± 0.29 (SE) in the control groups. Mean attitude pre-test scores in the interventional group was 27.23 ± 0.75 (SE) and after the intervention reached to 31.13 ± 0.25 (SE). Lecture-based educational intervention improved the knowledge and attitudes of midwifery students on oral health care in pregnancy. Incorporating courses on oral health in pregnancy into the curricula of midwifery programs can be effective in promoting oral health care in pregnant women.

Systematic review of the predisposing, enabling, and reinforcing factors which influence nursing administration of opioids in the postoperative period

AIM

To provide an overview of the administration of opioid analgesics by nurses when prescription is on an "as-needed" basis for postoperative pain, and to identify the important factors that determine the decisions of nurses, by using the framework of predisposing, reinforcing, and enabling causes in educational diagnosis and evaluation.

METHODS

Multiple databases were searched for the period from 2000-2012. Out of a total of 1755 citations and 148 abstracts retrieved, 39 studies met the criteria for inclusion. Studies were considered eligible for review if they focused on situations or factors influencing a nurse's performance in pain assessment and the administration of opioid analgesics in postoperative pain management.

RESULTS

The topics of the descriptive and qualitative studies presented four themes: (i) nurses' knowledge and attitudes about pain management; (ii) the situation of nurses' work practices in administrating range orders for opioid analgesics; (iii) factors that influenced nurses' work practices; and (iv) perceived barriers to effective pain management from the nurse's perspective. The experimental studies investigated the effects of different approaches in nurses' pain management practices in postoperative settings and their outcomes for patients.

CONCLUSION

A knowledge deficit was observed to be the reason in most cases for a nurse's failure to administrate adequate analgesics for postoperative pain relief. Pain-related education for nurses is the cornerstone to improve pain management. The integration of enabling and reinforcing factors will help nurses to develop the ability to make the decision to engage in a comprehensive intervention to improve pain management and patient outcomes.

The effect of postoperative pain management program on improving nurses' knowledge and attitudes toward pain

Effective postoperative pain treatment is an essential component to good quality of care. The purpose of this study was to explore nurses' knowledge of and attitudes toward pain in surgical wards before and after implementation of a postoperative management program at a university hospital in Jordan. The program consisted of an education program for nurses, and its effect was evaluated by using a pre- and post-intervention design. Sixty five registered nurses were asked to respond to a 21 items questionnaire, and a total of 240 patients' records were audited. After implementation of the program, the mean scores for all the questionnaire items were found to increase to 75%, with an average of 16/21 for the correct answers. There was a statistically significant difference (p < 0.05) between the number of correct answers between nurses' responses in the pre-intervention phase and their responses in the post-intervention phase for most of the questionnaire items. Also, there was a statistically significant improvement in the documentation of patients' care in 85% of the audited patients' records. It was recommended to introduce an acute pain services (APS) using a well established and safe pain management routines to increase the quality of care.

Developing postoperative pain management: utilising the promoting action on research implementation in health services (PARIHS) framework

BACKGROUND

The development of acute pain services (APS), education programmes, and protocols assumed an expectation that health care professionals would integrate evidence into everyday practice. However, research evidence into pain management would suggest that this is not the case.

APPROACH

Through a review of the literature, the authors aim to (1) explore the factors that have a significant influence on getting evidence into practice (using the PARIHS model as a guide) and (2) examine the relevance of these factors to postoperative pain practices.

FINDINGS

The need to assist clinicians with developing a greater awareness of the competing and complex influences that surround pain management practices is outlined.

RECOMMENDATIONS

There is a necessity to adopt a systematic, rigorous, and multidimensional approach to pain management issues, utilising the PARIHS framework as a guide, to improve pain practices.

Using system analysis to build a safety culture: improving the reliability of epidural analgesia

BACKGROUND

A potentially dangerous situation was revealed by an incident report describing the use of an inappropriate device to administer post-operative epidural analgesia to a patient on a surgical ward. The incident occurred in a 1200-bed university affiliated tertiary hospital (Geneva University Hospitals, HUG) and involved three clinical departments: anaesthesiology, the surgical intensive care unit and urology.

METHODS

A multidisciplinary system analysis was carried out to identify care-delivery problems and contributory factors. Corrective actions were devised on the basis of their ability to prevent and absorb unsafe situations.

RESULTS

The system analysis identified three care-delivery problems in relation to the management of epidural analgesia. It enabled medical and nursing managers to adopt an interdepartmental set of corrective actions: a common protocol for post-operative epidural analgesia, leading to the exclusive use of patient-controlled epidural analgesia (PCEA) pumps; greater availability of the patient-controlled pumps; the dissemination of guidelines; permanent proactive training of nurses by the acute-pain team; the clarification of medical responsibilities; and a common help-line phone number for all surgical departments.

DISCUSSION

The analysis provided a convincing exposure of various care-delivery problems and their corresponding contributory factors, as well as an opportunity to address a systemic issue in a multidisciplinary way. By thus facilitating decisions and corrective actions, the analysis was instrumental in strengthening our safety culture.