Medical‐Surgical Patients’ and Registered Nurses’ Satisfaction and Comprehensiveness of Patient Assessment Using the Clinically Aligned Pain Assessment Tool

Abstract

BackgroundThe pain experience is complex, and nurses are challenged to objectively assess and document patients’ subjective reports of pain. There is a clear need for an assessment tool that is easy to use and provides meaningful, actionable information for patients and nurses. AimsThis study explored nurses’ and patients’ satisfaction with the Clinically Aligned Pain Assessment (CAPA) as well as nurses’ charting. Setting and ParticipantsA convenience sample of adult patients and nurses on four medical-surgical units in one community hospital. MethodsA quantitative, two-group comparison design between patients and nurses using questionnaires to determine satisfaction and a retrospective chart review to determine comprehensiveness of nurse charting. ResultsNo significant differences existed between patients’ and nurses’ responses to seven of eight satisfaction questions The median score for seven of eight questions was 5 (using a 6-point Likert scale with 1 = strongly disagree and 6 = strongly agree), which demonstrated more than 80% agreement (somewhat agree, agree, strongly agree) among both groups that CAPA was superior to the NRS, based on individual responses. The one significant difference (p = 0.03) revealed patients were more likely to respond “agree or strongly agree” compared to nurses regarding the nurse thoroughly addressing patients’ needs using CAPA. Inter-rater reliability using CAPA was determined to be 89.5%, and a panel of clinical experts determined CAPA had strong content validity of 88.33%. In addition, 70.41% of nurses charted comprehensively using CAPA. ConclusionAs a result, CAPA was determined to be convenient, accurate, and valuable in guiding intervention decisions.