Piloting Tailored Teaching on Nonpharmacologic Enhancements for Postoperative Pain Management in Older Adults

S. M. Tracy

Journal

Pain Management Nursing

Year

2010

Abstract

Despite many advances in the pharmacologic treatment of pain, the issue of unresolved postoperative pain continues to plague patients and health care professionals. Little seems to be known about the reasons why nonpharmacologic methods are not more widely used, particularly as they are commonly low in cost, easy to use, and largely free of adverse side effects. A central question has to do with what patients are taught about nonpharmacologic methods and how a novel mode of teaching can be embedded in practice. A seven-step pre-posttest teaching intervention pilot study was deployed with older joint replacement patients within the context of a translational research model. Results of the teaching pilot showed significant post-teaching changes in subjects' knowledge and attitudes about nonpharmacologic methods for pain management, high satisfaction with the nonpharmacologic methods they chose, and incrementally greater use of the nonpharmacologic methods over the course of the hospital stay. A randomized controlled trial of the study is now in the early planning stages in an effort to obtain generalizable results that will help solidify evidence of the impact of music, imagery, and slow-stroke massage on pain management and confirm the value of patient teaching as an important means of offering patients more options for managing their own pain.

Music and Health Institute Terms

Elderly; Hospital Setting; Hospitalized Patients; Music Listening; Music Medicine; Orthopedic Surgery; Pain; Pain Management and Control; Patient Satisfaction; Postoperative Pain; Postoperative Patients; Recorded Music Listening; Surgery; Surgical Patients

Indexed Terms

Elderly; Elderly; Attitude to Health; Diffusion of Innovation; Evidence-Based Nursing; Health Knowledge, Attitudes, Practice; Imagery (Psychotherapy); Massage; Models, Educational; Models, Nursing; Needs Assessment; New England; Nursing Assessment; Nursing Evaluation Research; Postoperative Pain; Patient Care Planning; Patient Education as Topic; Pilot Projects; Postoperative Care; Self Care; Teaching; Translational Medical Research

Study Type

Quasi-Experimental Study; Quantitative Methods

PubMed ID

20728064

Document Type

Article

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