Nurses' reflections on pain management in a nursing home setting.
Achieving optimal and safe pain-management practices in the nursing home setting continues to challenge administrators, nurses, physicians, and other health care providers. Several factors in nursing home settings complicate the conduct of clinical process improvement research. The purpose of this qualitative study was to explore the perceptions of a sample of Colorado nursing home staff who participated in a study to develop and evaluate a multifaceted pain-management intervention. Semistructured interviews were conducted with 103 staff from treatment and control nursing homes, audiotaped, and content analyzed. Staff identified changes in their knowledge and attitudes about pain and their pain-assessment and management practices. Progressive solutions and suggestions for changing practice include establishing an internal pain team and incorporating nursing assistants into the care planning process. Quality improvement strategies can accommodate the special circumstances of nursing home care and build the capacity of the nursing homes to initiate and monitor their own process-improvement programs using a participatory research approach.
Clark
Lauren
L
University of Colorado at Denver and Health Sciences Center School of Nursing, 4200 East Ninth Avenue, Denver, CO 80262, USA. lauren.clark@uchsc.edu
Fink
Regina
R
Pennington
Karen
K
Jones
Katherine
K
D000698:Analgesia / Q000451:nursing / Q000592:standards; D001291:Attitude of Health Personnel; D002983:Clinical Competence / Q000592:standards; D003120:Colorado; D018849:Controlled Clinical Trials as Topic; D004509:Education, Nursing, Continuing / Q000458:organization & administration; D019317:Evidence-Based Medicine; D007722:Health Knowledge, Attitudes, Practice; D006801:Humans; D015337:Multicenter Studies as Topic; D009730:Nursing Assessment / Q000592:standards; D009735:Nursing Homes / Q000458:organization & administration*; D015404:Nursing Methodology Research; D009740:Nursing Staff / Q000193:education / Q000458:organization & administration / Q000523:psychology*; D009936:Organizational Innovation; D010043:Outcome and Process Assessment, Health Care / Q000458:organization & administration; D010146:Pain / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000517:prevention & control; D010147:Pain Measurement / Q000451:nursing / Q000592:standards; D010347:Patient Care Planning / Q000458:organization & administration; D036301:Qualitative Research; D017751:Safety Management; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D017749:Total Quality Management / Q000458:organization & administration*