A comparison of nurses?? recorded assessments of pain with perceptions of pain as described by cancer patients

Publisher Website
Google Scholar
Abstract
The purpose of this study was to gauge the agreement between the assessment of pain as recorded by nurses and the perception of pain as described by cancer patients. Subjects included in the study were 30 nursepatient dyads that were formed when a nurse identified a patient reporting pain. All cancer patients reporting pain were interviewed by an investigator to assess their perception of pain. A chart survey was used to extract pain assessment information documented in the nurse's notes in the cancer patient's medical record. The two research questions under investigation were (a) what percentage of pain assessment is recorded by the registered nurse for each cancer patient's description of pain, and (b) how much agreement is there between the information recorded by the registered nurse and the patients' description of pain. Results suggested that the majority of nurses documented only the location of pain and verbal statements by patients reporting pain; however, the documentations were not always in agreement with the cancer patients' descriptions of pain. The implications for the nursing profession and quality patient care are evident. Nurses need to evaluate both the importance of pain assessment and the need for documentation.

This publication has 0 references indexed in Scilit: