Nurses' Assessment Practices of Pain Among Critically Ill Patients.

Background: Systematic pain assessment is necessary to ensure effective pain management. Despite the availability of recommendations, guidelines, and valid tools for pain assessment, the actual implementation in clinical practice is inconsistent.

Aims: The purpose of this study was to investigate intensive care nurses' pain assessment practices among critically ill patients in Jordanian hospitals.

Design: A descriptive cross sectional design was used in this study.

Settings: This study was conducted in 22 intensive care unites located in eight hospitals in Jordan.

Participants/subjects: Convenience sampling was used to recruit a sample of 300 nurses working in intensive care units.

Methods: The Pain Assessment and Management for the Critically Ill survey was used to collect data. Descriptive statistics, χ, and correlational analysis were used to analyze data.

Results: A total of 89.7% of nurses (N = 300) used pain assessment tools with patients able to communicate, and the numeric rating scale was the most commonly used tool. A total of 81.7% of the nurses used a pain assessment tool with patients unable to communicate, and the Adult Nonverbal Pain Scale was the most commonly used tool. Nurses' perceived importance of pain assessment was positively associated with frequent use of pain assessment tools. Nurses perceived the use of pain assessment tools for patients able to communicate as being more important than the use of pain assessment tools for patients unable to communicate.

Conclusions: The majority of intensive care unit nurses used pain assessment tools for patients both able and unable to communicate; however, the most valid and reliable tools were not used often. Nurses were not aware of the pain behaviors most indicative of pain among critically ill patients.