Barriers to Effective Pain Management Essay

Nurses confuse a whimsical aim in alleviating the torment experient by their long-sufferings. With their professional familiarity and regular mean contacts with long-sufferings, they atomic sum 18 ideally placed to listen and respond to any concerns. fetching time to assess the individual w livery allow for the development of a thrusting relationship between the wet-nurse and longanimous. Accurate discernment and authentication crowd out help to chart the multi- dimensional nature of the perturb, aiding last do and persevering accusation planning (Mcguie 1992).Adequate control of im invest is save achieved in 50% of patient ofs in Western societies. This emphasizes that anguish control is a dependable problem for a great number of patients. Health c be professionals, patients and the wellness bursting charge system itself all contribute to this problem. Other factors that tote up to this undesirable situation let in the quest Poor decision qualificatio n on part of wellness get by professionals myths and misconceptions about perturb and opoids patients non conformity with treatment and their reluctance to report twinge Problems within the organization of health likePain discernment and management is an integral part of the routine nursing routine. Health care professionals must strive to everywherecome the barriers to effectual throe sensation management in practice. The design to under(a) medicate fourth-year adults whitethorn be related to several factors, including misguided beliefs, fears regarding complications, and a misery to assess ant treat confused older adults. It is imperative that nurses mountt act upon false misconceptions in delivering patient care.The management of pain in the decrepit represents a considerable nursing challenge. This is because the elderly are more likely to construe both acute and chronic pain than their younger counterparts. Age related factors may alike complicate the a ssessment and management of the individuals pain. Failing sight and audience, cognitive impairment, murkiness and dementia create communication difficulties and thus pose significant barriers to pain assessment particularly in the use of the measurement tools.Lack of friendship of the Doctor and nurse / poor communicationAn individuals pain is complex, the management should non rely on one professional clinical judgment and action. The pain control process should be interwoven between numerous health care professionals. The nurse must strive to exercise their communication skills in discussing aspects of patient care with the MDT team. A pretermit of confidence and familiarity are the common reasons for poor communication and teamwork.There is ample evidence to confront that both nurses and doctors have poor knowledge about pain and its management. It is also known that contemporary nursing and medical commandment programs do non equip health care professionals with signif icant information on the nature of pain, the methods of pain assessments and the principles of pain management.With a miss of knowledge and basic central management skills, nurses may feel unprepared to care for patients suffering from pain, and then make incorrect decisions regarding the management of patients pain. Poor decision making on behalf of the nurse can reflect on the following Underestimation of the severity of the illness Overestimation of the effectiveness of the interventions Reluctance to deal out parental analgesia Administering a low loony toons of opoid rather than the required dose needed to control the severity of patients pain. Nurses rarely employing non pharmacological strategiesIn addition, the lack of knowledge and confidence of the nurse may interrupt with his or her ability to effectively communicate aspects of patient care to different health care professionals. The under educated nurse has a end to underestimate the MDT and doctors involveme nt in pain assessment and management. However, it is imperative that the doctor carriers out a physical examination of the patient on admission to identify the pathological causes of the patients pain. This is an imperative part of pain management and is much needed to facilitate the planning of care.The more experienced the nurse is the more inclined they are to underestimate sinful pain. The little experienced nurse is more inclined to overestimate an individuals pain.The doctors lack of confidence and knowledge may core in him or her avoiding discussions relating to analgesia and changing the drug or dose of the opoid, irrespective of the nurses belief that it for the best interest of the patient. Doctors that are lacking in knowledge have a tendency to prescribe analgesia below the sanative aim of the pain and are frequently reluctant to act upon the nurse. This is a serious issue that must be addressed as the nurse is often the person who knows the most information about the patient as they translate a 24 hour round the clock care to the patient.It is muster out that these poor practices arise from a number of inter- related reasons. However the lack of knowledge and effective team work seems to be the central issue. In drift to assure effective communication is brought to the clinical practice, efforts to increase concourse learning and confidence of health care professions is much needed. Role revivify may improve health care professionals knowledge and collaboration skills. Interpersonal education may be effective at allowing health care professionals understand each others roles in practice. Regular education sessions in the hospital with numerous health care professions from different specialties may be a great fortune for nurses and other health care professionals to learn together.Communication BarriersThe collection of information at assessment is helpless on the nurses ability to communicate effectively. However, nurses ordinarily lack the skills required in this area.Health care professionals often expect the patients to recoil spontaneously of pain and patients often assume the nurse will inquire about their pain. This is one significant issue within communication that is commonly demonstrated in practice. Certain nurses dont even pick up the patient if they are experiencing pain. This is a serious issue as patients may be reluctant to report their pain because they dont sine qua non to appear unpopular or dont want to disturb the health care professionals from treating their condition. The omission of vocal assessment may result in these patients suffering unnecessary pain for a prolonged percentage point of time. This can have devastating long term consequences to an individuals health.A quantity of nurses may employ some form of verbal communication to the patients pain assessment. However, they usually confine the assessment to asking one question only, such as, are you experiencing any pain at p resent? This can be misinterpreting as the patient may be pain free lying still in bed, still the patient may be experiencing pain on activity. In order to improve the management of pain in practice, continuous education of up(a) communication skills must be enforced into the clinical setting.A number of communication barriers such as deafness, blindness, and disorientated, confused and cognitive damage persons can further complicate the assessment process. It is important to compensate for the auditory and ocular impairments that the individual may have. While assessing and monitoring the patient, the nurse must position her/his face in view of the patient, speak in a shadowy and normal tone of voice, use large print size, and provide write instructions and aids such as glasses or hearing aids.Pain assessment should be considered a greater challenge amongst the elderly as these patients more commonly present with communication barriers. Such barriers include deafness, blindne ss, and cognitive impaired, unconscious and disorientated individual. Pain assessment tools are designed to instance patients with various communication barriers. Health care professionals must choose the capture assessment tool that would best suit the individual in pain. For example, a visual analogue scale may be more capable for a deaf individual. The abbey scale is specially designed for the cognitive impaired individual.The nurse must validate the pain and believe that the pain is as bad as the patient reports it to be. Nurses have a tendency non to validate the patients pain. They tend to overestimate lower levels of pain and underestimate more severe pain. If the nurse places him or herself in the role of the family member, they may become more reactive to the patients needs and his or her experience of pain. Commonly the nurses distance themselves from the patient which results in the nurses failing to recognize the patients needs.Nurses have a tendency to block commun ication with patients who are terminally ill or patients who have chronic pain. This is because they believe they cannot do much for the patient. Efforts to improve professionals collaboration skills with the terminally ill patients and chronically ill is fundamental.Clearly continuing education that integrates helping nurses become more sensitive to patient pain may have an important role in facilitating nurses to develop better assessment skills.Health care professionals poor pain assessmentA good assessment is the pedestal of good control of distressing symptoms. Yet, current pain assessment practices cave in much to be desired. The underestimation of the patients pain seems to be problematic in current practice. Nurses have developed a tendency to interfere about a persons pain on a basis of what they observe. This may be acceptable if they confirm the hardiness of the interferences with the patient, however this is not happening.Poor use of verbal cuesHealth care professiona ls frequently observe patients behaviors and activities when assessing pain and consider non verbal cues as existence reliable indicators of pain intensity. However, it is easy to misinterpret non verbal cues. For example the nurse tends to only regard pain as intense or severe if the patients show real intense behavioral signs. The nurse assumes the patient is pain free if such intense behavior signals are absent. Nurses need to result into account that each patient will have a unique response to pain which will be influenced by many factors including heathen beliefs and religious morals.Such patients will exhibit bearive pain behaviors such as crying and moaning, where others may adapt a stoical preliminary and will not express their suffering outwardly. The presence of pain is in that locationfore not always obvious from the patients facial manifestation and non verbal cues should not be regarded as reliable indicators of pain.If health care professionals place emphasizes on non verbal cues and make interferences on the basis of what they observe, it is not surprising that they yet tend to underestimate the intensity of patients pain and over estimate the effectiveness of interventions.The use of measurement tools which provide patients with a government agency of quantifying their pain experience is one way of overcoming this problem in practice. However, the under use of assessment tools is a problem that needs to be addressed. Interviewing the patient who is experiencing pain is a critical component of assessment since it provides patients with an opportunity to express not only intensity of their pain but also what it sum to them and the effect it has on their lives.Constraints to developing a therapeutic relationship with the patientPain assessment should be viewed as a unique opportunity for the nurse to use effective communication skills and spend time to sort a relationship with the patient. This may encourage patients to express their fea rs or concerns, enhancing patient assessment and therefore improving the overall goals of care. However, staff shortages and time constraints often make it difficult for the nurse to spent time with the patient and and then it is difficult to build a thrusting relationship with the patient. The fact that there is a high turnover of patients in the hospital means that nurses have little opportunity to establish and sustain a good therapeutic relationship with the patient and family.