Pain management standards: suggestions for Iran (2005)

Background: Pain is a universal problem and the most common reason for refering to clinics and hospitals. Everyone responsible for health care will face pain which is the most usual and probably the major sign of sickness. Pain management standardization is a common and unique language causes unio‎n in works and corrects circulation of information and prevents waste of time. This was a study of pain management standards to suggest the appropriate standards for Iran. Methods: This was a Triangulation study carried out in 2005. The study samples, in the first stage, included 14 and in the second stage, 40 nursing faculty members who were instructors of nursing department with master and PhD degrees. In the first stage, pain management standards were extracted by searching in the Internet, valid nursing textbooks and through consulting with the instructors. In the second stage, these standards were sent for 14 nursing faculty members of universities in the form of a questionnaire with open ended questions to collect their opinions. Then according to the collected data from the second stage of the study, a new questionnaire was made, which was sent for 40 nursing faculty members of universities to collect their opinions. In the forth stage, their answers were analyzed. Results: The findings of this study included two distinct areas and 88 suggested standards. The first area, assessments of pain, included 35 standards and the second area, nursing implementation of pain, included 53 standards. At the end of this study, a set of standards with 90% consensus including 14 items in the area of assessment and implementation of pain have been suggested to decrease the number of standards in order to increase the probability of the executive power of them. Conclusion: This study suggested 88 standards for pain management in Iran, which are hoped to improve the quality of pain management and increase the quality of clinical services and the patient’s satisfaction.