Abstracts Health Sciences

ASSESSMENT OF POSTOPERATIVE PAEDIATRICS PAIN MANAGEMENT PRACTICE OF NURSES IN GOVERNMENT HOSPITALS OF ADDIS ABABA

by BESHIR AMINA

Background: Pain in children is often overlooked mainly due to their inability to communicate rightly their feelings to the caregivers. Postoperative pain is one of the pains which children suffer due to various reasons but not limited to poor health practices or lack of knowledge on the consequences by nurses and other health care professionals. The causes and effects associated with knowledge and attitude in post-operative pain management of children in Ethiopia is inadequately addressed and not well documented. Objective: To assess post-operative paediatrics pain management practice of nurses in government hospitals of Addis Ababa, Ethiopia 2015. Methods: Institutional based quantitative cross-sectional study design was implemented from April to May 2015 .The study population were selected from four governmental public hospitals with a sample size of 210 nurses. Data was collected using structured self-administered, questionnaire. After analysis frequency and percentages were used to summarize the finding and significance of determinant factors were tested using Logistic regression and Odds Ratio & P< 0.05 was considered significant. Result: The results of the study showed that 49.5% of nurses‟ postoperative pain management practice was at moderate level, 2.9% and 47.6% of nurses had good and poor practice of postoperative pain management respectively. Regarding their knowledge and attitude the result showed nurses had moderate level of knowledge and negative attitude towards postoperative pain management. It was found that factors attitude, knowledge, education, service year, pain management contents included in nursing curriculum and training were found significantly associated to postoperative paediatrics pain management practice with <0.05 P- value. Conclusion: Majority of the nurses in the study had moderate levels of postoperative pain management practice of children. It was also found that factors other than age, gender, paediatric assessment tool, and guide line and drug availability had an important impact on to postoperative paediatrics pain management practice. Recommendation: This study recommends development of mechanism to provide nurse in-service training on post-operative pain management of children, including pain management and incorporate content into the nursing curriculum promoting paediatric nurses educational level. Key words:- Pain, postoperative pain, children, paediatric nurses, practice, knowledge, attitude Advisors/Committee Members: YOSIEF TSIGE (MSc) (advisor).