Abstract
The framework that guided this study was Dorothea Orem’s Self Care Deficit Theory (2001) and the principles of andragogy (Knowles, 1998). This quasi-experimental study utilized a repeated measures design and retrospective, as well as cross-sectional, data to investigate the effectiveness of a comprehensive intervention for increasing the assessment documentation of newborn pain. Also of interest was the effect of the intervention on the frequency and documentation of nonpharmacologic newborn pain management.
The overall findings of this study, following the programmatic intervention, indicate that there was an increase in documentation of pain assessment following painful procedures. The study also showed an increase in the total number of pain assessments and nonpharmacologic interventions documented in the nurses’ notes. The results of the study were both statistically significant and of practical importance. There was an increase in the mean number of pain assessments, pain assessments following painful procedures, and nonpharmacologic interventions documented. These results of this study are also of clinical importance. The a priori effect size was set at 20%, based on the research literature. When examining the entire programmatic intervention (Time 0 versus Time 2) the effect size for documented pain assessment following procedures was 33.25%, and the effect size for documented nonpharmacologic interventions was 34.47%. The results support the use of a programmatic intervention to increase documentation of pain assessment after painful procedures and nonpharmacologic interventions by the nursing staff. Of the nurses in this study, 50% were greater than 41 years of age. An interesting Pearson correlation (r = -2.52) showed that as the number of years of nursing experience increased, the total number of NIPS documented decreased.
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