Critical care nurses' use of non-pharmacological pain management methods in Egypt

To examine Critical Care Nurses' Practices of Non-pharmacological Pain Management Interventions in Egypt.

Descriptive exploratory design was utilized in the current study with a convenience sample of 60 critical care nurses working in three intensive care units at Al Manial university Hospital, Egypt. The questionnaires included; nurses' demographic data, non-pharmacological pain management checklist utilizing likert scale, and perceived barriers to the practice of non-pharmacological pain management interventions. Comparisons were made between the nurses' responses about practices of non-pharmacological pain management and selected demographic variables.

The non-pharmacological methods used by few nurses were putting the patient in comfortable position, communication with the patients and their families and using comfort devices. Moreover, nurses' education, work experience and the work area showed no statistically significant association with the few of non-pharmacological pain relief interventions they used. Finally, the barriers that hindered non-pharmacological pain practices from being used by nurses were lack of nurses' knowledge, lack of time, nurses' workload and patients' instability.

Most of the critical care nurses didn't apply non-pharmacological pain interventions practices with their patients in pain. The approaches used by a few nurses were changing position and the use of some comfort devices. Moreover, no significant correlations were found between nurse' application of non-pharmacological pain measures and either educational level and work area.

Barriers need to be explored and continuing education is needed to eliminate some of these perceived barriers. Moreover, theoretical and practical non-pharmacological pain management interventions should be incorporated in nursing curricula.