Effect of a QI Intervention on Nursing Assistants' Pain Knowledge and Reporting Behavior.

Abstract Background Pain among long-term care residents is often underdiagnosed and inadequately treated. We examined the effect of a multimodal intervention on certified nursing assistants’ pain recognition knowledge and verbal reporting behavior. Secondarily, we examined pain documentation in a newly established pain log compared with pain verbally reported to nurses and documented in the electronic health record (EHR). Design Quality improvement project using a pretest–posttest design. Setting A skilled nursing and rehabilitation facility in Southwestern Pennsylvania including two long-term care units and one transitional rehabilitation unit. Participants/Subjects Fifty-six nursing assistants. Methods The intervention was a face-to-face educational session with a training video and introduction of a new pain log used to document residents' pain. Pain knowledge was measured before and after the educational intervention. Multiple measures were used to examine nursing assistants’ pain reporting. Results Nursing assistants’ pain knowledge improved (p  Conclusions Although the multimodal intervention improved nursing assistants’ pain knowledge and their perceptions of the feedback they received from nurses when they reported pain, it had no effect on certified nursing assistants reporting of pain to nurses (per nurse report).