Opportunities for nurses to help patients’ pain management being missed, study shows
Nurses are in a unique position to change patient behaviour to improve health outcomes but are only using around a fifth of the techniques that could help do so, according to new research.
From encouraging patients to take their medication regularly to making different lifestyle choices, the regular contact nurses have with patients means that they have more opportunities to help patients enact change to improve their health than other health practitioners, such as doctors.
Chronic pain affects around 43% of the population in the UK, with back pain alone costing the UK economy around £12 billion annually, and $8.15 billion globally. It impacts social wellbeing, as well as taking a psychological toll on patients, and adherence to pain management is crucial to mitigate the impacts on both individuals and society.
When a patient has a condition which involves pain management, self-management including increasing physical activity, social support and setting goals can help to reduce reliance on medication such as opioids and can improve patient’s health outcomes.
A new study has looked at the use of behaviour change techniques in pain management, and found that out of 93 behaviour change techniques, only 17 were used in the study.
Examples of behaviour-change techniques include goal-setting (such as, for example, encouraging a patient to aim for a ten-minute walk), giving information about health consequences (such as explaining how regular movement can reduce inflammation and improve long-term pain outcomes) and planning (such as how and when they will go for a walk).
The research, published in Pain Research and Management, found that nurses use some behaviour-change techniques, but this is based on experience rather than training.
Dr Jasmine Hearn, Senior Lecturer in Psychology and Programme Leader for MSc Health Psychology at Manchester Met, said: “The study shows that, despite using some behaviour-change techniques, nurses often don’t feel confident using them due to lack of training and supervision, even though they are frequently the health professionals who see patients the most, and often have the most opportunities to improve health.
“There are often challenges from patients suffering from long-term pain; medication and surgery are often seen as the answer to ‘getting rid’ of pain, but changes in behaviour can have a real impact on improving pain management.
“The study indicates that professional development training aimed at enabling nurses to use an increased range of behaviour-change techniques with their patients could provide more opportunities to encourage patients to take actions which would improve outcomes for their health.”
Dr Hearn’s research in health psychology focuses on chronic pain in a range of long-term health conditions such as endometriosis, back pain, and spinal cord injury, aiming to improving understandings of chronic pain, and developing evidence-based and theory-informed interventions to improve health management and communication across painful health conditions.
