Geriatric pain competencies and knowledge assessment for nurses in long term care settings.

Pain in older adults is a prevalent problem that affects quality of life and challenges nurses, particularly those caring for older adults living in long term care settings. Despite the national priority of pain management, insufficient knowledge of nurses about geriatric pain is a documented barrier to effective geriatric pain management in all long term care settings. To address this knowledge gap, a website (GeriatricPain.

Improving the process of pain care in nursing homes: a literature synthesis.

Regulatory agencies, researchers, and clinicians have identified improving pain assessment and management in nursing homes as a high priority, but there is no consensus regarding the best strategies to change pain management practices in nursing homes. The goal of this article is to present a synthesis of published literature of process-level pain management improvement projects in nursing homes and identify and describe the role and necessary skills of various clinicians and nursing leaders in successful interventions. This literature synthesis is limited to research in nursing homes.