Postoperative pain management in self-assessment of nursing actions

Introduction
Self-assessment of nursery care quality in terms of managing postoperative pain.

Material and methods
The research was conducted in questionnaire form among a group of 96 nurses working on clinical wards. The research used a questionnaire with demographic data and standardised sheet: Scale of Clinic Quality Indicators of Postoperative Pain Management: version for nurses. It contains 12 questions categorised in four subscales: Communication, Actions, Trust, and Environment.

Results
Average point values obtained by respondents for the overall result of the Scale of Clinic Quality Indicators of Postoperative Pain Management and particular subscales were lower than the desired values described for researched parameters. Only a couple of statements were scored above the estimated values. They concerned mainly the effective pain killing (4.56 ±0.63 pts), vulnerability for observed pain symptoms (4.71 ±0.54 pts), and helping the patient to find the ideal position to eliminate or lower his/her pain (4.58 ±0.67 pts). Low number of nurses was least valued (2.99 ±1.25 pts). The quality of nursing care in terms of pain management was significantly different depending on the ward in which the research was conducted.

Conclusions
In self-assessment of nursing care quality of managing postoperative pain, the obtained indicators were lower than the scale creators’ estimated values. They differed in a significant way depending on the ward where the research was conducted. Nurses’ education and the training courses they had taken part in concerning pain therapy barely modified the postoperative pain management.