Objective
To investigate the status quo of knowledge and attitude towards pain among medical staff in West China Hospital of Sichuan University.
Methods
The medical staff in Emergency Department of West China Hospital of Sichuan University were investigated by the Chinese version of Knowledge and Attitudes Survey Regarding Pain (2008) questionnaire, the contents of which related to pain assessment, pain related knowledge, analgesic related knowledge, and comprehensive application, etc. And the questionnaire scores were compared among medical workers with different background.
Results
A total of 156 questionnaires were sent out and 130 valid ones were taken back, with an effective recovery rate of 83.3%. There was no statistically significant difference in questionnaire scores among the medical workers with different education background or different professional titles (P>0.05). The questionnaire scores were significantly different among nurses with different seniority (F=3.785, P=0.035), and the mean score of the nurses with more than 10 years of seniority was the highest (22.78±7.11). The questionnaire scores were significantly different among nurses working in different areas (F=3.043, P=0.033), and the mean score of the nurses working in rescue room was the highest (24.53±7.84).The erroneous items were concentrated on item 5, 17, 19. In the answers to the open questions, 97.7% (127/130) thought that the existing pain knowledge could not satisfy the needs of clinical work; 100.0% (130/130) believed that it was necessary to study pain related knowledge; 80.0% (104/130) acquired pain related knowledge from clinical experience, 40.0% (52/130) from books, 15.4% (20/130) from the network; 90% ( 117/130) commonly used numeric rating scale to evaluate the patients’ pain degree, 20.0% (26/130) evaluated the patients’ pain degree through facial expressions.
Conclusions
The overall level of pain management knowledge and attitude in medical staff in Emergency Department is low. The continuing education on pain knowledge should be strengthened, the attitude towards pain treatment and the importance of pain management should be paid more attention, and the standardized training and supervision should be enhanced.
