title: Assessing knowledge, perceptions and attitudes to pain management among medical and nursing students: a review of the literature.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Chronic pain results in significant personal, societal and economic burden. Doctors and nurses have a pivotal role in patient pain management. In order to determine the effectiveness of current pain education on knowledge, attitudes and perceptions of medical and nursing students, there needs to be a valid measure to assess and quantify these domains. We reviewed the literature to identify approaches for assessing knowledge, perceptions and attitudes to pain management among nursing and medical students.
  
  
  METHODS
  Databases of peer-reviewed literature including CINAHL, EMBASE, ERIC, PsycInfo, Medline and PubMed were searched for articles published between 1993 and December 2014 using the following search terms: student, graduate, intern, junior, pain, pain management, analgesia, analgesic, pharmacology, pharmacological, knowledge, competence, attitude, preparedness, practice, nursing, medical, doctor, nurse.
  
  
  RESULTS
  The search revealed over 3500 articles, and on application of the inclusion criteria, 26 articles were included in the review. A total of 14 instruments were used in these studies with the Knowledge and Attitudes Survey Regarding Pain (KASRP) as the main instrument in 9 out of the 26 articles. The various instruments used different question formats such as multiple-choice questions (MCQs), true/false statements and Likert scales that went from 3 points to 7 points. Clinical skills examinations were also used in four studies to assess pain management.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  There is no gold standard instrument currently used to assess knowledge, perceptions and attitudes to pain management. The results of this review showed, despite the diversity of standardised instruments that have been used to assess knowledge, perceptions and attitude to pain management, the literature has consistently reported that knowledge about pain management among nursing and medical students was generally poor among both groups.
authors.affiliation: School of Medicine, University of Western Sydney, Penrith, NSW, Australia.
authors.forename: Andrew
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Ung
authors.affiliation: School of Nursing and Midwifery, University of Western Sydney, Centre for Applied Nursing Research, Ingham Institute of Applied Medical Research, Penrith, NSW, Australia.
authors.forename: Yenna
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Salamonson
authors.affiliation: School of Medicine, University of Western Sydney, Penrith, NSW, Australia.
authors.forename: Wendy
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Hu
authors.affiliation: School of Medicine, University of Western Sydney, Penrith, NSW, Australia; Centre for Health Research, University of Western Sydney, Penrith, NSW, Australia; Faculty of Health Sciences, The University of Sydney, Lidcombe, NSW, Australia.
authors.forename: Gisselle
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Gallego
keywords: Pain management; assessment; knowledge; medical students; nursing students