Challenges faced by nurses in managing pain in a critical care setting

Pathmawathi Subramanian, Nick Allcock, Veronica James and Judith Lathlean

Journal of Clinical Nursing, 2012, vol. 21, issue 9‐10, 1254-1262

Abstract: Aim. To explore nurses’ challenges in managing pain among ill patients in critical care. Background. Pain can lead to many adverse medical consequences and providing pain relief is central to caring for ill patients. Effective pain management is vital since studies show patients admitted to critical care units still suffer from significant levels of acute pain. The effective delivery of care in clinical areas remains a challenge for nurses involved with care which is dynamic and constantly changing in critically ill. Design. Qualitative prospective exploratory design. Methods. This study employed semi structured interviews with nurses, using critical incident technique. Twenty‐one nurses were selected from critical care settings from a large acute teaching health care trust in the UK. A critical incident interview guide was constructed from the literature and used to elicit responses. Results. Framework analysis showed that nurses perceived four main challenges in managing pain namely lack of clinical guidelines, lack of structured pain assessment tool, limited autonomy in decision making and the patient’s condition itself. Conclusions. Nurses’ decision making and pain management can influence the quality of care given to critically ill patients. It is important to overcome the clinical problems that are faced when dealing with pain experience. Relevance to clinical practice. There is a need for nursing education on pain management. Providing up to date and practical strategies may help to reduce nurses’ challenges in managing pain among critically ill patients. Broader autonomy and effective decision making can be seen as beneficial for the nurses besides having a clearer and structured pain management guidelines.

Date: 2012
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-2702.2011.03789.x

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:wly:jocnur:v:21:y:2012:i:9-10:p:1254-1262

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Journal of Clinical Nursing from John Wiley & Sons
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Wiley Content Delivery ().