Pain knowledge and attitudes of nursing students: a literature review

Pain management is a priority in nursing care but nursing students often find it a challenge. To prepare nursing students adequately, nurse educators need to understand nursing students' pain knowledge and attitudes and design interventions to enhance their readiness for pain management.

The objective of this literature review is to identify, summarize and critically appraise current evidence on (i) pain knowledge and attitudes of nursing students and (ii) pain education programs for nursing students.

A thorough analysis of the literatures on the topic of pain and nursing students was done. Data sources were as follows: MEDLINE, CINAHL, PsycINFO, British Nursing Index and GoogleScholar. Review methods were as follows: A systematic search was conducted in the named data sources from 2004 to 2014 to identify English-language articles with the two keywords "nursing student" and "pain." Two authors assessed all identified articles independently for inclusion into review.

A total of 11 studies were included in the review: seven of these studies focused on the assessment of pain knowledge and attitudes, and four of them aimed at evaluating pain education programs. The findings indicated that nursing students worldwide had inadequate pain knowledge and misconceptions on pain management. Pain education programs, in general, were found to be effective in improving nursing students' pain knowledge and attitudes.

Studies consistently revealed the inadequacy of pain knowledge and inappropriate pain management attitudes of nursing students. Pain education programs are limited in number, but they demonstrated effectiveness in improving nursing students' pain knowledge and attitudes. Implications for research on pain knowledge and attitudes, and the implementation of pain education programs for nursing students are discussed.