Objectives: The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of the attitudes of nurses toward postoperative pain management, self-efficacy, barriers, and pain management performance to provide basic data for effective postoperative pain management.
Methods: This descriptive correlation study investigated 134 nurses who work in the PACU, surgery ward, obstetrics and gynecology ward, and ICU at two university hospitals in D Metropolitan City. Data was analyzed using the IBM SPSS statistical program and the level of statistical significance was set at p-value〈0.05. Descriptive statistics was done for all variables. Numerical variables were summarized as a mean(±Standard Deviation) and categorical variables were summarized by frequency and percentage. we carried out t-test, ANOVA, Scheffe test, and multiple regression analysis.
Results: The subjects scored 2.92 in postoperative pain management, 3.59 in self-efficacy, 3.85 in barriers, and 3.02 in pain management performance. There were significant differences in their attitudes toward postoperative pain management according to gender, educational level, and career. Significant differences were found in self-efficacy by age and career in barriers according to gender, and the performance of postoperative pain management according to ward. The performance of postoperative pain management was positively correlated to self-efficacy(p〈0.002) and correlations with barriers(p〈0.002). The working department had impacts on the performance of postoperative pain management. Nurses in the ICU recorded a higher level of performance than those in the PACU and surgical ward. Self-efficacy and barriers also had impacts on the performance of postoperative pain management.
Conclusion: These findings raise a need for intervention research on various ways to reinforce the self-efficacy of nurses and active interventions to lower the barriers at the level of medical institutions and promote their performance of postoperative pain management.