Effects of a continuing education program on nurses' practices of cancer pain assessment and their acceptance of patients' pain reports.
A hospital-based quasi-experimental (pretest and post-test) study was conducted in Kaohsiung Veteran General Hospital, Taiwan. This study was to evaluate a continuing education program (CEP) on nurses' practices of cancer pain assessment and their acceptance of patients' pain reports with respect to four types of misconceptions. A questionnaire was sent to on-duty nurses or head nurses with patient care responsibilities before the implementation of CEP (n=645) and six months after the program (n=630). The response rates were 92.6% and 91.3% for pretest and post-test surveys, respectively. The CEP was implemented in 8 weeks with four-repeated sessions of 4-hour lectures. A one-day workshop focused on cancer pain assessment and treatment was held 3 months after the four-repeated sessions. Several educational strategies and teaching materials were used in the CEP. The results showed that CEP made statistically significant yet moderate improvement in nurses' practices of pain assessment using pain rating scales (pretest 3.29+/-0.76 vs. post-test 3.48+/-0.75, P<0.001) and acceptance of patient's pain reports without misconceptions on addiction (3.12+/-0.80 vs. 3.39+/-0.90, P<0.001), phantom pain (3.91+/-0.96 vs. 4.07+/-0.92, P=0.005), and placebo testing (3.63+/-0.72 vs. 3.81+/-0.73, P<0.001), except on patient gender-age-related doubts (3.60+/-0.72 vs. 3.67+/-0.77, P=0.109). In order to achieve further improvement, additional follow-up CEP combined with a hospital-wide institutionalization of pain assessment should be promoted and implemented in the future.
Ger
Luo-Ping
LP
Department of Medical Education and Research, Kaohsiung Veterans General Hospital, Kaohsiung, Taiwan.
Chang
Ching-Ying
CY
Ho
Shung-Tai
ST
Lee
Ming-Chien
MC
Chiang
Hsien-Hsien
HH
Chao
Co-Shi
CS
Lai
Kwok-Hung
KH
Huang
Jui-Mei
JM
Wang
Shih-Chun
SC
D000328:Adult; D004509:Education, Nursing, Continuing; D006801:Humans; D009369:Neoplasms / Q000150:complications*; D010146:Pain / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000209:etiology*; D010147:Pain Measurement / Q000451:nursing*; D015397:Program Evaluation; D012647:Self-Assessment