Daily pain assessment: value for nurses and patients.

Area of Science:

• Nursing
• Pain Management
• Healthcare Implementation Science

Background:

• Current pain management guidelines emphasize systematic pain assessment.
• Standardized tools like the numeric rating scale (NRS) are underutilized by nurses in daily practice.
• Barriers to consistent pain assessment require investigation.

Purpose of the Study:

• To assess the feasibility and value of daily pain assessment using an NRS with an educational program for nurses.
• To evaluate nurse compliance with daily pain assessment protocols.
• To explore patient and nurse perspectives on daily pain assessment in multiple hospital settings.

Main Methods:

• Implementation of an NRS with an educational program in three hospitals.
• Prospective study measuring nurse compliance and collecting patient/nurse feedback.
• Comparison of outcomes across different hospitals and clinical specialties (medical vs. surgical wards).

Main Results:

• High nurse compliance with daily pain assessment (73.9%) was observed.
• Daily pain assessment was found to be feasible and valued by nurses.
• Patients generally provided pain scores and responded positively, despite some difficulty articulating pain numerically.

Conclusions:

• Daily pain assessment is practical and appreciated by both nurses and patients.
• Successful implementation requires tailoring protocols to the specific needs of the healthcare setting.
• Further research may explore optimizing patient-reported pain measures and addressing inter-hospital/inter-specialty variations.