Korean J Adult Nurs.  2020 Jun;32(3):283-291. 10.7475/kjan.2020.32.3.283.

Factors Influencing Performance of Pain Assessment and Pain Intervention for Dementia Patients among Long-term Care Hospital Nurses

• Jeon MS
• Song CE
• Park JM
• Kim WG

• KMID: 2504053
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.7475/kjan.2020.32.3.283

Abstract

Purpose
This study aimed to identify factors influencing performance of pain assessment and pain intervention for dementia patients among long-term care hospital nurses.
Methods
In this descriptive study, participants were 106 nurses working in seven long-term care hospitals. Data were collected from August 13 to August 30, 2019. Nurses’ performance of pain assessment and pain intervention, attitude toward dementia, empathy, and knowledge about dementia-related pain were measured through self-reported questionnaires.
Results
The factors influencing performance of pain assessment were a total clinical career of 5 to 9 years (β=.29, p=.013) and a total clinical career of more than 15 years (β=.31, p=.013), which together explained 15.9% of the variance in the model. The factor influencing performance of pain intervention was attitude toward dementia (β=.31, p=.018), and explained 8.7% of the variance in the model. Empathy and knowledge about dementia-related pain were not found to be significant factors in either of the models.
Conclusion
The study findings suggest that a specialized education program for nurses with short clinical careers should be developed. Additionally, when designing the education program, it is recommended that varied content that can induce psychological and emotional attitude changes be included, as well as knowledge-oriented content. Finally, the more effective the pain assessment for dementia patients, the more appropriate the pain intervention and its performance will be. Thus, it is necessary to provide systematic training to enhance the pain assessment skills through a case study-based approach.

Keyword

Dementia; Long-term care; Nursing assessment; Pain management; Nurses