Hospice and Hospital Oncology Unit Nurses a Comparative Survey of Knowledge and Attitudes About Cancer Pain," authors Connie J. Hollen et al. (2000) set out to examine any strengths, weaknesses and misconceptions that affect the ability of registered nurses to care for their patients.
To conduct their research, Hollen et al. (2000) went to 11 community hospices and 7 inpatient oncology units in hospitals around an urban county area in a southcentral state. The researchers then took a sample of 30 nurses working in hospices and 34 nurses from the hospital inpatient oncology units. These "convenience samples" were administered with surveys to determine their inclusion in the study, as well as their knowledge and attitudes about the management of pain in cancer patients.
The researchers used the North Carolina Cancer Pain Intiative (NCCPI) survey. This survey measures the primary components of a subject's knowledge, attitudes, perceived difficulties and demographic information in relation to the task of managing a cancer patient's pain. The survey tool was chosen because of its comprehensiveness. The knowledge section alone measures 31 variables, while the demographic part has 56 items. The NCCPI survey was also useful because it allowed the researchers to measure different variables of a nurse's pain management duties.
The Hollen et al. (2000) study showed that hospice nurses scored significantly higher than their hospital counterparts in knowledge of opioid, general pain and scheduling subscale knowledge. The hospice group of nurses, for example, had a mean correct response of 80% in opioid knowledge, compared to only 57% for the typical hospital nurse.
Hospic nurses further scored higher in the "mean liberalness" score than hospital oncology nurses. Finally, the hospice nurses showed a greater overall knowledge in the effective administration of opioid analgesics. The demographic data further shows that nurses who had greater hours of pain education scored higher on the liberalness measure and were more knowledgeable regarding the use of analgesics.
These findings backed up the findings of a similar British study that showed hospice nurses were more well-versed with pain management techniques than hospital oncology nurses. The previous findings lend further credence to the Hollen et al. (2000) study.
The main limitation of this study is the survey tool itself. The NCCPI survey is a useful tool for gauging the knowledge and abilities of nurses. However, some of the survey's questions are subjective, especially those which purport to measure a nurse's "liberalness" in terms of pain management and the use of opioid analgesics.
Also, since the sampling was voluntary and since the delivery method involved placing the questionnaire in the in-boxes of the nurses, other hospital nurses without mailboxes were inadvertently excluded. In addition, the focus on urban setting may also unintentionally skew the results.
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