Knowledge and Attitude towards Pain Management among Nurses Working at University of Gondar Comprehensive Specialized Hospital, Northwest Ethiopia

Abstract

Introduction. Pain is unpleasant sensory and emotional experience associated with actual and potential tissue damage. Inadequate pain management has been shown to affect patient outcomes by potentially increasing hospital stay and delaying recovery; thus, the management of pain has major implications for nursing. e study was aimed to identify gaps in knowledge and attitude of nurse's level of pain management. Objective. is study aimed to assess knowledge and attitude towards pain management among nurses working at University of Gondar comprehensive specialized referral hospital, Northwest Ethiopia, 2019. Methods. Institution-based cross-sectional study was carried out during May 20-30, 2019. A stratified random sampling technique was used to select 422 nurses. Hospital departments were classified into 5 main strata having nearly the same working conditions: (1) Internal Medicine, (2) Pediatrics, (3) Surgical, (4) Outpatient Clinics, and (5) Emergency and Intensive Care Departments. e proportional allocation was taken from each stratum, and then a simple random technique was applied. Descriptive statistics like frequency, mean, median, standard deviation, and percentage were used to describe the distribution of data. Independent samples t-test was used in comparing the gender knowledge and attitude mean score of the nurses towards pain management. One-way ANOVA was also used in determining the differences between knowledge and attitude towards pain management with sociodemographic characteristics at the p � 0.05 level of significance. Result. A total of 411 study participants were involved in this study. More than half of the nurses, 225 (58.1%), were males; 308 (79.5%) of them were in the age category of 19-29 years. e magnitude of good knowledge towards pain management among nurses was 66.9% with a mean score of 7.14 (1.74 SD). e magnitude of favorable attitude towards pain management among nurses was 51.7% with a mean score of 49.33 (7.13 SD). Conclusion and Recommendation. is study revealed that nurses working at University of Gondar hospital had good knowledge and a lower level of attitude towards pain management than those reported in previous studies. us, the situation demands various educational and quality improvement initiatives that could enhance the nurse's knowledge and attitude in the area of pain management.

Knowledge, attitudes and practices of health professionals towards postoperative pain management at a referral hospital in Ethiopia

“…In this study, we found that 58.4% of health professionals have good knowledge level towards postoperative pain management which is consistent with a study conducted to assess Knowledge, attitudes and practices of nurses regarding to post-operative pain management at hospitals of Arsi zone (54.5%), Ethiopia (56.5%) and Ghana (59%) [ [20] , [21] , [22] ]. However the results of this study were lower than those of studies conducted in Gondar (66%), Uganda (75%), Saudi Arabia (87.5%), Bangladesh(66.7%) the United Kingdom (73.8%), and United States of America (74%) of the study participants showed a strong understanding of post-operative pain management [ [23] , [24] , [25] , [26] ]. The possible explanation for this discrepancy would be because of difference in socioeconomic level, study site, sample size and other factors like variety of data collecting tools.…”

Knowledge, Practice and Factors Associated with Pain Management for Adult Critical Ill Patients Among Nurses Working in Federal Hospitals of Addis Ababa Ethiopia 2020

“…On the other hand the finding of the study was higher than that in the studies done in Mekelle, Ethiopia, 58.6%, Zimbabwe, 35.5% Iran, 46.6%, Turkey, 38.2%, Australia, 24% and Malaysia, 25% [43]. The sample size variation among the two studies could bring the discrepancy; Mekelle's study included 261 nurses, whereas the current study included 193 nurses.…”

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