Barriers to apply pain assessment tools in children by nurses

BackgroundPain control is intended to prevent pain and suffering of women and to increase the quality of life. Successful pain control is achieved by accurate pain assessment and for doing this, proper and valid tools should be applied. PurposeThis descriptive cross sectional study was performed to identify the problems of nurses in applying pain assessment tools in children. Methods30 nurses in emergency ward of clinics of Oil Company voluntarily took part in the study. A questionnaire in 3 parts including demographics, barriers of nurses to apply the tools and information regarding pain assessment was used for data collection. Content method was used for validity of the tool. Its reliability for the second and third part was measured by test-retest and internal consistency methods respectively. Results72.3% and 26.7% of nurses were male and female respectively. 73.3% had baccalaureate and 26.7% had associate degrees. Their mean age was 37±5. 60%, 20% and 20% of the nurses had moderate, weak and good knowledge regarding pain assessment respectively. The most common barriers were environmental [facilities and manpower (lack of a pain assessment tool and inadequate personnel to assess pain)], administrative (lack of regulations to assess pain and lack of inclusion of it in annual personnel evaluations), educational (inadequate programs in this regard) and personal or motivational (work overload of nurses) according to the subjects. Conclusion Results showed that nurses face with many difficulties in assessing pain from different aspects. The analysis and suggestions indicate that the most significant solution for this problem is to establish pain control nursing committee at the setting. Keywords: Nursing, Pediatric, scale, Pain assesment, Commission.