Abstract

Abstract

Background: There is limited evidence on nurses’ knowledge, attitude and practice of post operative pain management in Ethiopia. The present study aimed to assess Knowledge, Attitudes and Practices of Nurses Regarding Post-operative Pain Management at Hospitals of Arsi zone, Southeast Ethiopia. There are still inadequacies of knowledge and attitude regarding post-operative pain management practice in the study area.

Methodology: A self reported institutional based quantitative cross-sectional study design was used to collect data from 144 nurses who were providing post operative patient care conducted from 24^th April to 12^th May 2018. Data was collected by using structured self-administered questionnaire, which was adopted from previous studies to collect the data and verified, coded and entered to Epi Info Software version 3.5.4 and then it exported and analyzed by SPSS version 21 Software for data analysis. Descriptive statistics were used to describe demographic characteristics, level of nurses' knowledge on pain management, attitude towards pain management and their practice and significance of determinant factors were tested using Logistic regression and Odds Ratio & P< 0.05 at 95% CI. Binary logistic regressions were used to see the association or the relationship between dependent and independent variables.

Results: Findings of the present study revealed that the majority of nurses who participated in this study had shown good knowledge about pain management (54.86%) but Nurses were questioned to assess their attitude to score 9 questions on a five point Likert scale related to post-operative pain management. The mean score for attitude was 30.62 with standard deviation of 2.681. Respondents who scored more than the mean value were regarded as having Favorable attitude towards post-operative pain management. Nurses who scored less than the mean value were regarded as having unfavorable attitude towards post-operative pain management reveals that (52.1 %) and practice of nurses in post operative pain management were very low (52.1%).Conclusions: As the nurses are the most important parts in the multidisciplinary approach in pain management, their knowledge and attitude make a big difference. So, there is a need for regular in-service training on pain management according to the recommendation of standard.

Keywords

pain management, nurses, knowledge, attitude and practice, postoperative pain, inadequately treated pain, individualized care, thrombo embolism, psychological, socio economic effects, less strain, surgical ward, obstetrics and gynecology, critical care units