Determining of Nurses Knowledge, Behavior and Clinical Decision Making Regarding Pain Management

Aim: This research, aimed to determine nurses’ knowledge and behaviors about pain management and situation of clinical decision making and to determine the factors that affects it. Method: The research is descriptive and analytical. 63 nurses that accepted to join the research composed the sample group. During data collection, “Nurse Introductory Form”, “The Nurses' Knowledge and Behavior Questionnaire About Pain” and “Clinical Decision Making Survey Questionnaire” that developed by McCaffery and Ferrell (2003), were used. In statistical analysis, number, percentage, average and Manny-Whitney U test, Kruskall-Walis Test and Ki-square tests were used. Results: It was determined that the knowledge and behavior score of the nurses about pain management is medium level (10.76±1.98) and most of them were lacking sufficient knowledge about pain identification and management issues. It was also detected that only the 48.7% of the nurses observed the patient’s behaviors for determining pain density, 66.7% of them did not use pain scale to measure the patient’s pain. A statistically meaningful difference was not detected amongst the total score averages of pain knowledge and behavior of the nurses’ ages, education status, their clinics, their tasks and working years. (p>0.05). Conclusions: At the end of this research, it was found out that the nurses’ knowledge and behavior score about pain is in middle level and they were all lacking of enough information about identifying pain and pharmacological management of pain. Keywords: Nursing, pain, knowledge, behavior, clinical decision making.