Pain with no cause! Nurses' perception

Nurses are called upon to assess chronic pain in health settings and their perceptions about chronic pain are likely to influence the pain assessment and pain relief.

This survey as a part of chronic pain education workshop was conducted at National Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences, Bangalore, India, by pain education group. Here we present the observations collected during the workshop on chronic pain held for nurses.

A semiqualitative method was used to survey the perceptions about chronic pain among nurses. The survey form consisted of 28 statements about chronic pain with options of agree and disagree to be marked prepared by the pain education group.

The data were computed and frequency distribution of different statements was derived.

The total number of participants was 44. Two-thirds of the nurses had good knowledge about pain behaviors. About 70% of the nurses reported that severity of pain to be assessed by observing patient's behavior and felt that if a house wife complains of pain it is to avoid work. Only 11% of the nurses provided correct responses related to discussion on pain being psychological; 90% had poor knowledge about pain communication on pain to be treated only for the underlying cause.

These observations highlight the fact that inadequacies in knowledge about chronic pain exist among nurses; the main areas include pain communication and pain treatments. It is important to include proper pain curriculum and training for chronic pain assessment and management.