Barriers to Pain Management as Perceived by Nurses Working at Surgical Units

Background: Pain is a clinical challenge for the practicing nurses. Nurses working at
surgical unit do not provide adequate pain management, to meet patients’ expectations in treating
their pain, and struggle to change their practice regarding pain management. Objective: This study
aimed to identify barriers to pain management as perceived by nurses working at surgical unites, at
Alexandria Main University Hospital (AMUH) and Health Insurance Hospital (Gamal Abdelnasser)
(HIH). Setting: The study was conducted at “the surgery units” of (AMUH) and (HIH).
Subjects: The subjects of this study comprised a convenient sample of 90 nurses working in the
above-mentioned units: 40 nurses from (AMUH) and 50 nurses from (HIH). Tool: One tool was
used for data collection entitled Postoperative Pain Management Barriers as perceived by nurses.
It included three categories; Healthcare system -related barriers, Healthcare professionals-related
barriers and Patient -related barriers. Results: The results revealed that nurse who participated in
the study were of high educational background (bachelor) and practical nurses (diploma), The
major healthcare system-related barriers perceived by those nurses were” low priority given to
pain treatment”,” failure to adopt a specific assessment tool”” specific pain management “and
absence of pain management policy”. Healthcare professionals' barriers included “inadequate
knowledge and training of pain management”. Patient-related barriers comprised “dissatisfaction
with pain management” “underestimating the level of pain”, and “failure to report pain to the
nurse/physician accurately. Conclusion: It can be concluded that, the most commonly encountered
barriers amongst the three studied categories were those related to health care system followed by
health professional and patient barriers. Recommendations: Recommendations involved, training
programs related to pain management conducted for nurses working at surgical units.