Investigation on the effects of pain assessment workshop on knowledge, attitude, and practice of nurses in Valie-Asr Hospital in Arak

A major reason for lack of pain control is inadequate training and skills of the staff. Nursing is intervened in order to provide patients with more comfort and pain control. Nurses can maximize the control of patient''s pain through pain assessment. In this line، this study aimed to investigate the effects of pain assessment workshop on the knowledge، attitude، and practice of nurses working in Valie-Asr Hospital of Arak. This quasi-experimental study was done on 80 nurses in the operation، orthopedics، emergency، and burn wards of Valie-Asr Hospital of Arak. The tools included demographic، knowledge، and attitude questionnaires and practice observational checklist. Validity of the tools was evaluated using content validity، and their reliability was assessed by test-retest (for the knowledge questionnaire)، Cronbach''s Alpha (for the attitude questionnaire)، and interrater reliability (for the observational checklist). Intervention occurred during four 45-minute-long sessions for nurses. The knowledge and assessment questionnaires were completed by nurses، and the checklists by the researcher’s colleague for the second time. Data were analyzed in SPSS (version 16) by paired t-test and Pearson. Scores means of knowledge increased from 9. 2 ± 99. 7 to 5. 2 ± 71. 13، of attitude from 5. 7 ± 9. 22 to 6. 7 ± 5. 37، of practice concerning asking the patient questions from 4 ± 3. 8 to 5. 4 ± 1. 16 and practice concerning using pain assessment tool from 7. 1 ± 7. 1 to 8. 1 ± 3. 5. (p≤0. 001). Pain assessment workshop can be effective on enhancing the knowledge، attitude، and practice of nurses. Therefore، periodical training، provision of pain assessment equipment، and proper policies and procedures for monitoring and evaluating pain assessment can be effective.