Abstract
BackgroundPain is highly prevalent in all health care settings, and frequently poorly managed. Effective pain management is predicated on a continuous cycle of screening, assessing, intervening and evaluating. Identifying gaps in nurses’ self-perceived pain assessment competencies is an essential first step in the design of tailored interventions to embed effective pain assessment into routine clinical practice, and improve patient reported pain outcomes. Yet, few validated instruments focus on the competencies required for undertaking a comprehensive pain assessment, with most focusing on clinician’s pain management competencies. AimTo examine the validity of the ‘Self-Perceived Pain Assessment Knowledge and Confidence’ (Self-PAC) Scale. DesignPreliminary instrument validation. SettingTwo Australian cancer and palliative care services. Participants/Subjects186 cancer and palliative care nurses. MethodsThe Self-PAC Scale was administered to participants online. Factor Analyses, including Exploratory and Confirmatory, were applied to examine the structural validity, Cronbach’s alpha was calculated for internal consistency. Criterion validity was investigated by comparing responses from experienced and non-experienced nurses. ResultsTwo components resulted with a single factor structure for pain assessment confidence and a two-factor structure for the knowledge of pain assessment. The factor loading for the subscales ranged from 0.653 to 0.969, with large proportions of the variances explained by the factors. Cronbach’s alpha of the subscales ranged from 0.87-0.92 and significant difference in responses were found between experienced and non-experienced nurses. ConclusionPreliminary validation of the Self-PAC Scale suggests that it is a helpful instrument for assessing cancer and palliative care nurse’ pain assessment competencies.
Highlights
Pain is one of the most universally feared but common symptoms experienced by people living with chronic illnesses, including cancer
This study reports the results of the preliminary validation of an instrument designed to measure the self-perceived pain assessment competencies among cancer and palliative care nurses
Sample and setting: All registered and enrolled nurses employed within two established specialist palliative care services and five inpatient and/or ambulatory cancer care settings in New South Wales, Australia were invited to participate in the study
Summary
Pain is one of the most universally feared but common symptoms experienced by people living with chronic illnesses, including cancer. Pain is experienced by 30-75% of people with cancer and rated as moderate to severe by 40-50%, as severe by 25-30%, and is under-identified and under-treated in up to half of cases (van den Beuken-van Everdingen et al, 2007). Effective pain management is predicated on a continuous cycle of screening, assessing, intervening and evaluating. Identifying gaps in nurses’ self-perceived pain assessment competencies is an essential first step in the design of tailored interventions to embed effective pain assessment into routine clinical practice, and improve patient reported pain outcomes. Few validated instruments focus on the competencies required for undertaking a comprehensive pain assessment, with most focusing on clinician’s pain management competencies
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