The level of competent knowledge about pain therapy among nurses from surgical wards

Introduction. Pain does not make people noble and its treatment is the right of a suffering person; that’s what specialists who deal with the
issue of pain treatment claim unanimously. Pain is treated insufficiently and the problem is often neglected by practitioners. Patients often do
not realize that pain treatment is their right and medical necessity. The studies published in 2008 by Polish Society of Pain Treatment show
that from 40-60% patients after surgical operations feel severe pain. Patients suffer and it is their subjective, strong sensation. One should
also talk about consequences of inappropriately treated pain which is the cause of a number of post-surgical complications. Nurses realizing
tasks for the patients in surgical wards play a key role in pain therapy. Contemporary nursing is aiming at providing the patient with more and
more perfect care as far as quality is concerned, especially when there appears a surgical interference in the disease.

Aim of the study. The aim of the study was checking the level of knowledge among nurses of surgical wards about the topic of post-surgical pain therapy.

Material and methods. 40 nurses from surgical wards took part in the research. The research tool was a questionnaire survey consisting of
21 questions. The questions were connected with the knowledge of nurses concerning schemes of pain treatment, pharmacotherapy of
pain and pain monitoring in surgical wards.
Results and conclusions. One cannot talk about effective relieving of post-surgical pain because the pain is not always properly monitored.
Nurses not always have full knowledge about effects of painkilling medications and their side effects. Nurses do not have full knowledge
about the frequency of breathing depression as the most dangerous complication of opiods overdosing. Properly organized trainings in
post-surgical pain treatment are not registered in the area of surgical wards.

Nursing Topics 2010; 18 (2): 129-133