Decision-making processes for the self-management of persistent pain: a grounded theory study.

Persistent pain negatively impacts upon the individual suffering this condition. Almost all care related to persistent pain is self-managed. Decision-making is a critical skill of the self-manager and without these skills it would be improbable that effective self-management would emerge.

Why isn't 'time out' being implemented? An exploratory study.

Background: While there has been much discussion extolling the virtues of using 'time out' as a means of preventing the potential for sentinel events, to date there has been little examination of the issues that impact on clinicians' uptake of 'time out' in operating-room settings.

Aim: This study sought to methodically identify implementation and practice issues associated with the introduction and ongoing use of a 'time out' protocol in a large healthcare organisation.

Methods: Sixteen participants were interviewed and included surgeons, anaesthetists, nurse managers and nurses who worked at the clinical interface.

Assessing pain across the cultural gap: Central Australian Indigenous peoples' pain assessment.

Pain is a dynamic, unpleasant sensory experience with many physical, psychological, and social implications. Assessment of pain within a bicultural environment has the potential to cause ineffective pain management and unnecessary suffering amongst Indigenous people. It has been recognised that non-Indigenous nurses sometimes demonstrate culturally unsafe practices during the pain assessment process.

Post operative pain experiences of central Australian aboriginal women. What do we understand?

Objective: The aim of this study was to explore the postoperative pain experiences of Central Australian Aboriginal women and the subsequent interpretation of that pain experience by non-Aboriginal female nurses.

Design: Qualitative study using grounded theory methodology.

Setting: Postoperative surgical setting of a Central Australian regional hospital.