Investigating Nurses’ Knowledge, Attitude, and Performance Regarding Pain Management of Non-verbal Critically-Ill Patients in Tanzania Intensive Care Units

Although patients› self-report is the gold standard for pain, many patients admitted to the intensive care units are unable to communicate and express their pain. Accordingly, the nurse must have special abilities to diagnose and manage pain in such conditions. This study assesses nurses’ knowledge, attitude, and performance regarding pain management of non-verbal critically ill adult patients in intensive care units.

This cross-sectional descriptive study was conducted from February to May 2020 among nurses working in four national referral hospitals in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. The study sample included 202 intensive care unit nurses who were recruited by the census. The data was collected using pre-validated questionnaires, including the knowledge and attitudes survey regarding pain tools, and a performance tool by Eunkyoung. The data were analyzed using the chi-square test, one sample t-test, and Spearman correlation coefficient in the SPSS software, version 20. The significance level was set at P<0.05.

The mean knowledge and attitude score was 13.26±2.75, indicating inadequate knowledge and negative attitude. The mean performance score was 2.08±0.16, indicating low performance. No significant relationship was detected between nurses’ knowledge and attitude and their performance according to the t-test (t=2.84, P=0.09) and the Spearman correlation coefficient (r=0.12, P=0.102). Meanwhile, no significant relationships were found between the nurses’ knowledge, attitude, and performance and their demographic characteristics.

Planning to increase knowledge and improve the attitude and performance of ICU nurses for better pain management of non-verbal patients is necessary. It is recommended to evaluate the pain of these patients based on the observation of behavioral indicators of pain and choose the appropriate tool for pain assessment.