Nurses' under-medication of analgesia in cardiac surgical patients: a personal exploration

This paper examines aspects of care which may account for some of the reasons why critical care nurses fail to relieve patients' pain following cardiothoracic surgery. Factors that may influence the critical care nurses' decision regarding the amount of opiate analgesia to give a patient are examined using the 'Theory of Planned Behaviour' as a framework for enquiry. The skills required by the critical care nurse in planning how to play the phenomena of 'the doctor-nurse game' may be a key element in meeting the goal of pain relief for the patient following cardiac surgery.