Patients and nurses attitude towards pain management with alternative methods

Introduction: Alternative therapeutic methods are used frequently by health care professionals for pain management, particularly for patients whose disease is in advanced stage. Purpose: To assess attitudes toward alternative methods for pain management among patients and nurses. Results: This study’s sample is comprised by patients and nurses randomly selected from three general hospitals in Athens, Greece. This is a quantitative descriptive study with the demographic factors association. Two questionnaires were used, which were answered under the principals of anonymity and confidentiality with synchronic design and survey elements to record nurses’ and patients’ knowledge and attitude concerning implementation of alternative methods for pain management. Results: Patients clinic and age do not seem to affect the implementation of alternative methods for pain management. Regarding the profession, the average reported pain score for manual workers is 3.25 (ranged from 1 to 5), whereas, the score for self-employed is 9.75 (ranged from 1 to 10). Pain intensity score decreases from 4.52 ± 3.3 to 1.92 ± 2.8 after the use of at least one alternative method for pain management (p<0.001). Only 19.7% of nurses reported that they used alternative methods for pain management and 23% suggested them to patients. Less than 15% of nurses are not willing to be trained in alternative methods for pain management. Conclusion: These results show that pain should be managed by combined conventional and alternative interventions and patients’ opinion should be taken into account.