Knowledge, attitudes and practices of health professionals towards postoperative pain management at a referral hospital in Ethiopia

Abstract

BackgroundPostoperative pain (POP) is a form of acute pain following surgery. It results from tissue injury during surgical procedure like skin incision, tissue dissection, manipulation and traction. It is one of the immediate postoperative complications. Despite new standards, guidelines and different strategies the practice of postoperative pain management is found to be inadequate. We aimed to assess knowledge, attitude and practice on postoperative pain management practice among Health professionals working at Debre Tabor Referral Hospital. MethodInstitution based cross-sectional study was conducted to assess Knowledge, Attitudes and Practices of Health professionals regarding to Post-operative pain management at Debre Tabor Referral Hospital 2020 from 118 health professionals. Data was collected using structured self-administered questionnaire and was verified, coded and entered to Epi Info Software version 3.5.4 and then it was exported and analyzed by SPSS version 20 Software. After analysis frequency and percentages was used to summarize the finding. ResultThe overall finding of the study revealed that health professionals had good knowledge (58.4%), unfavorable attitude (44.9%), and poor practice (24.58%) towards post-operative pain management. ConclusionNon physician anesthetists have good knowledge, attitude and practice towards post-operative pain management. But the overall attitude and practice of health professionals’ towards post-operative pain management is poor.