Pain in critical patients from the perspective of intensive care nurses: assessment and interventions

Abstract

This study aims to investigate knowledge and practice of intensive care nurses on pain assessment in critically ill patients and identify key interventions implemented. The research was descriptive in nature is a qualitative, in a random sample of ten nurses. Data were collected through the technique of semi-structured interview, from September to November 2008 in an intensive care unit of a university hospital in João Pessoa/PB/BR. To organize and analyze the data, we used the technique of the Collective Subject Discourse. The speech material provided, among others, the following ideas: the pain is a response to invasive procedures, assessment across the face of pain and anguish, through the intensity scales, administration of prescribed medications. The Collective Subject Discourse showed that the pain is caused by many invasive procedures being difficult to analyze because it is a subjective, individual and emotional phenomenon.