Improving the Quality of Care Through Pain Assessment and Management

Abstract

Education about safe pain management will help prevent undertreatment of pain and the resulting harmful effects. Safety includes the use of appropriate tools for assessing pain in cognitively intact adults and cognitively impaired adults. Otherwise pain may be unrecognized or underestimated. Use of analgesics, particularly opioids, is the foundation of treatment for most types of pain. Safe use of analgesics is promoted by utilizing a multimodal approach, that is, using more than one type of analgesic to treat the individual’s pain. Opioid use is often avoided or inadequate for fear of causing life-threatening respiratory depression. Nurse monitoring of sedation levels when opioids are initiated is one way to assure safety. While nondrug techniques pose minimal safety issues, the current evidence does not support that these techniques produce consistent, predictable pain management outcomes.