The evaluation of nurses? knowledge, attitude and clinical decision making regarding pain management

The investigation has been held on among 168 nurses between 26th June- 8th August, in 2008 with the aim of finding out the knowledge and attitude of nurses about pain and evaluating clinical decision making regarding pain management, working at 82rıd Year State Hospital and Adiyaman State Hospital. Knowledge and attitude questionnaire which were prepared by the researcher and Clinical Decision Making Survey Questionnaire developed by McCaffery and Ferrell have been used as a means of data collection. Frequency, mean, standard deviation and Ki-Square test have been used for the assessment of the dataIt?s been found out that the mean for correct answers of nurses in the knowledge questionnaire about pain is 3.78±0.11. There is a remarkable statistical discrimination between the age groups and correct answers given for questions about pain. There weren't any other remarkable distinction between other parameters. For attitude questions about pain it has been observed that the nurses could answer plesebo application with (7.1 %) the lowest rate and the rights of patient and patient relatives with (54. 8%) the highest rateIn the clinical decision making questionnaire: it?s been found out that the nurses are observing patients' behaviors while diagnosing the degree of pain; %88.1 percent of nurses aren't using pain scala while diagnosing the degree of pain; they especially have problems with patient him/herself and his relatives while cutting the pain down: they have to diagnose the patient's pain while making a decision about the pain with the highest rate of (%48); and they have anxiety about using too much medicine. With the results gained from this research, it has been suggested that adequate training about pain should take place in the nursery curriculum following training should continue with in-service courses, seminars, and other courses and it should be assessed whether given training is applied.