The impact of nurse initiated pain protocol : in emergency department

• Main Author: Ashly, Gisha
• Language: English
• Published: University of British Columbia 2014
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/2429/50570

Even though pain is a common symptom in the emergency departments inadequate analgesic and suboptimal management of pain is not very uncommon. Pain is one of the factors influencing the triage acuity level. Prompt pain management with a thorough pain assessment is necessary for meeting patient care needs. Therefore, a Nurse Initiated Pain Protocol is one of the strategies to manage pain in a timely manner and achieve patient satisfaction. With the guidance from other research studies from Australia, Sweden and United States using Nurse Initiated Pain Protocol in the ED and Latimer et al’s (2010) KUPC model, this study was performed to capture the pain management practices of ED nurses with a Nurse Decision Support Tool. The Nurse Decision Support Tool was introduced in one of the emergency departments in the Lower Mainland. The 300 charts were randomly selected and data collected with the data collection sheet. Statistical Program for the Social Sciences (SPSS) version 1.0 was used to analyse the data. Mean, median and standard deviation were used to interpret the data. Unfortunately, there were no significant differences between before and after the initiation of the Nurse decision Support Tool in the ED. However, the study provided preliminary findings in the pain management practices in emergency department by the nurses. === Applied Science, Faculty of === Nursing, School of === Graduate