Assessment of the pain experience in relation to selected nurse characteristics

This study was designed to investigate the impact of select nurse characteristics (years in practice, age, relative job satisfaction, educational preparation, clinical practice area, cultural background and shift assignment) on assessments of patient pain and psychological distress. Fifty registered nurses were randomly selected from two surgical units, two medical units, and a combined intensive care unit/coronary care unit. Upon agreement to participate, an appointment was scheduled to administer the Standard Measure of Interferences of Suffering, the Job Descriptive Index, and a sociodemographic questionnaire. The results indicated that nurses inferred significantly less pain than psychological distress (t (98) = -12.68, P less than 0.01). The relationships between nurses' assessments of pain and psychological distress and years in practice, age, and relative job satisfaction were weak and non-significant. The associations between educational preparation, clinical practice area, and shift assignment were also non-significant. Further analysis of the Standard Measure of Inferences of Suffering, in regard to the patient characteristics of age, sex, and illness/injury, demonstrated that only the category of illness/injury significantly influenced nurses' inferences of suffering (F(4, 245) = 8.486, P less than 0.01). In evaluating the differences for all categories of sex, age (4-12, 30-45, and 64 years and older), and illness/injury (cardiovascular, cancer, infection, trauma, and psychiatric), the ratings for psychological distress were again significantly higher than those for pain.