Nurses’ knowledge and barriers regarding post-operative pain management at teaching hospitals in Erbil city / Iraq

Abstract

Background and aim: Pain management is an important aspect of patient care and nurses play a significant role in the acute care setting in providing pain assessment and treatment. Objective for this study was to assess nurses’ knowledge and attitude regarding post-operative pain management at Erbil teaching hospitals. Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted on a non-probability purposive sample of (53) of post-operative nurses. The questionnaire was constructed for data collection consist of three parts; part I included socio-demographical characteristics of nurses, part II about Nurses’ knowledge on post-operative pain management and part III included; barriers of pain management. Data were collected by self-reports by nurses and analyzed through the application of descriptive and inferential analysis measures (frequencies and percentages, chi-square) by using SPSS version 21. Results: The results show that overall correct answer score of nurse’s knowledge on postoperative pain management was 61.76%, and overall level of nurse’s knowledge was fair with 81.1%. Nurses were had many barriers toward pain assessment and management like Lack of protocols & guidelines for pain assessment and management with 90.1% followed by nurse’s workload and patients in ability to communication with 81.1%. Conclusion: Nurses need to follow protocols & guidelines for pain management and continuous courses on pain management.