Banaag, Christine Joy P.

BSN-III

REFLECTIVE JOURNAL

"Enhancing Nurses’ Pain Assessment to Improve Patient Satisfaction"

Prior studies suggest that patient satisfaction with pain management is influenced by
a number of factors, in- cluding personal beliefs, expectations, and interactions with
healthcare providers Patients who undergo joint re- placement procedures are typically
older than 65 years, Older adults are more concerned about being dependent or impaired
due to opiate use than younger adults. These factors present a significant opportunity for
nursing because nursing care plays a vital role in providing optimal pain control and patient
satisfaction with pain management. Patient recovery is affected by ineffective pain
management. Increased readmissions, extended lengths of stay, and poor health outcomes
can all be implications of ineffective pain management.
When it came to pain management and patient satisfaction, study found that while
patients with lower pain ratings were satisfied with their postoperative care, those who had
less pain than expected were comfortable with their overall care. As a matter of fact, they
began a quality improvement initiative to enhance the nurse's evaluation of a patient's pain
in the postoperative total joint patient population, with the goal of and patient satisfaction
with pain management. The project's basic goals must include:
1. Develop an online educational tool to instruct nurses in use of an expanded pain
assessment protocol specific to joint replacement surgical patients that incorporated pain
assessment relative to mobility and specifically addressed pain management concerns of
older adults.
2. Evaluate change in nurses’ knowledge pre- and postintervention related to pain
assessment in joint replacement surgical patients and strate- gies to improve patient
satisfaction with pain management.
3. Evaluate patient satisfaction with pain man- agement after implementation of the
instruc- tional project. 
This journal aimed to improve nursing staff's pain assessment skills, with an
emphasis on the needs of older adults who needed complete joint replacement. Nurses
identified areas of new knowledge during a focus group discussion that centered on a better
understanding of the effect of their pain evaluation on satisfaction scores.