An online learning module improves specialist palliative care nurses' pain assessments and patient-reported pain

摘要

Context: Inadequate assessment has been identified as a factor contributing to unrelieved pain. This is especially true in specialist cancer and palliative care settings where pain is common. In Australia, services are expected to routinely assess pain for specialist palliative care service inpatients and during each visit for community patients. Despite this, there is little documented evidence of either routine screening or comprehensive pain assessment. Phillips and colleagues suggest that there are opportunities to strengthen pain outcomes by focusing on routine pain screening and assessment practices. They hypothesised that completion of an online pain assessment module (Qstream) would increase the number of documented pain assessments and reduce patients' reported pain.