Science Journal of Medicine and Clinical Trials
January 2015,Volume 2015, ISSN: 1276-7487
© Author(s) 2015. This work is distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.
Research Article
Evaluation of Nurses' Choice of Patient Pain Assessment Tools at Fetha Abakaliki, Ebonyi State
Ogwa E.I1, Anarado A2 and Ndie E.C3,
1Federal Reaching Hospital Abakaliki
Ebonyi State.
2Dept of Nursing Science, University of Nigeria, Enugu Campus.
3Dept of Nursing Science, Ebonyi State University Abakaliki
Accepted 7th January, 2015; Available Online 21 January,2015
doi: 10.7237/sjmct/127
Abstract:
A cross - sectional descriptive research design was used to conduct the study on evaluation of nurses' choice of patients' pain assessment tool at the Federal Teaching Hospital Abakaliki, Ebonyi state. The instrument used was a questionnaire. 450 nurses were randomly selected for the study. The results show that nurses prefer patients verbal pain report (77%) while 66% chose Wong - Baker faces pain intensity scale. The reason for their choice include ease of use (79%), availability ( 69%) and non - specificity for any age. The results also show nurses document pain assessment (58%) in the observation chart while (75%) report in the ward report book. It was concluded that the choice of pain assessment tools use by the nurses is determined by the ease of use, availability and hospital policy on pain assessment tool. It was recommended that training should be conducted for nurses on pain assessment tools and various tools should also be made available to nurses in the hospitals
Keyword: Nurses Choice, Patients' Pain, Assessment Tools.