Nursing practices for pain management in hospitals of a city of Santa Catarina

ABSTRACT BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: Pain is the fifth vital sign and requires from health professionals specific skills and knowledge for its management. This study aimed at evaluating nursing practices for pain management in hospitals of a city in Southern Brazil. METHODS: This was a cross-sectional and quantitative study carried out by means of a structured questionnaire to evaluate professional characteristics and knowledge about pain in a sample of 418 professionals: 63 nurses and 355 nursing technicians from three hospitals, two public and one private, between July 2012 and August 2013. Chi-square and Fisher Exact tests were used to evaluate associations between explanatory variables and groups (professional category, type of hospital and time of professional exercise), with significance level of 5%. RESULTS: From all participants, 27.5% have attended specific discipline in their qualification; 30.6% have attended pain qualification courses; 66.7% know about pain evaluation methods and 58.6% use them. Private hospital professionals are more skilled in pain evaluation methods (p