Nursing students’ knowledge about pain assessment

• Autor(a) principal: Santos,Amanda Francielle
• Data de Publicação: 2018
• Outros Autores: Machado,Rafaela Ribeiro, Ribeiro,Caíque Jordan Nunes, Mendes Neto,José Marden, Ribeiro,Maria do Carmo de Oliveira, Menezes,Míriam Geisa Virgens
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: BrJP (Online)
• Texto Completo: http://old.scielo.br/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S2595-31922018000400325
• topic: Knowledge; Nursing students; Pain assessment

ABSTRACT BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: The difficulty of the nursing staff in assessing pain, the low adherence to the registry of pain and the quality reported in other studies brings the need to assess the related factors and one of them can be the lack of knowledge. The objective of this study was to evaluate the knowledge of nursing students about pain assessment. METHODS: A cross-sectional, descriptive and quantitative study, conducted in a Higher Education School in Aracaju, Brazil. The sample was composed of 169 nursing students over the last period of graduation. The data were obtained through a form that contained sociodemographic information, questions about pain assessment, and knowledge sources used. RESULTS: The scales to assess pain in children and in adults are known by 70 and 66% of the students, respectively. They reported that pain assessment and the incorrect pain treatment may impair the clinical picture and aggravate the disease, both in the child (17.2%) and the adult (15.4%). The rate of correct answers about pain assessment ranged from 26.6 to 87%. Most of them use articles to gain knowledge about pain (56.2%). The fact of having already used a scale to assess the patient’s pain (p=0.045) showed significant differences in the average of hits. CONCLUSION: Nursing graduates are aware of the existence of scales to assess pain, but they do not have the ability to perform them. The prior use of scales promotes learning. The lack of knowledge about pain impacts on the patient’s health.