Abstract
Context. Despite improvement in pain management and availability of clinical treatment guidelines, patients in Jordan are still suffering from pain. Negative consequences of undertreated pain are being recognized as a reason for further illnesses and poor quality of life. Healthcare providers (HCPs) are responsible for relieving pain of their patients. Objective. To evaluate the knowledge and attitudes of HCPs toward pain management in Jordan. Methods. A 16-item questionnaire with agree or disagree options was given to 662 HCPs in seven hospitals in Jordan who volunteered to participate in the study. Following data collection, the responses were coded and entered into SPSS. Results. There was a statistically significant difference (p < 0.004) in percentage scores between physicians (36%) and pharmacists (36%) versus nurses (24%). The level of knowledge was the best among physicians, followed by pharmacists specifically in the area of cancer pain management. Nurses scored the lowest for knowledge of pain assessment and management among HCPs. However, HCPs overall scores indicated insufficient knowledge specifically in relation to pain assessment and management among children.
Highlights
Pain is often undertreated even though it is the main reason for people seeking medical advice [1,2,3]
Screening for pain should be a part of a routine assessment, and this has led the American Pain Society (APS) to declare pain as the “fifth vital sign” [10]
About 40% of healthcare professionals’ (HCPs) had qualifications of five years or less in their work and 26% of them were from surgical wards
Summary
Pain is often undertreated even though it is the main reason for people seeking medical advice [1,2,3]. For effective pain management HCPs must be well-educated and knowledgeable about pain. This begins with a thorough and accurate assessment of patient’s pain [2, 9]. Findings of research emphasized the need to improve education and to conduct training programs about available pain management options to improve provided care and life quality of patients. In addition lack of knowledge about dealing with special groups of patients such as the elderly and the very young led to undertreatment or even no treatment of pain in such cases [4, 14,15,16,17]
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