Nursing in a Day Surgery Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Nursing in a Day Surgery - Essay Example In order to do this the discussion will first of define pain, because it not objective as many nurses and health practioners may believe. In fact it is a very subjective term. The discussion will end by considering the problems in the UK when dealing with patient's whose wishes are hard to discern and whether we should be administering pain relief methods without proper consent. It is this balance between whether nurses, as myself, should be acting on the wishes of the doctors and the establishment or the patient's wishes and concerns. This is because speed and cost efficiency should not be a determining factor in a patient's health, rather if a person who has varicose vein surgery is more suited for overnight care this should be considered. Pain was found to be the major concern for patients undergoing surgery and they wanted access to information both verbally and through written communication (Taylor. H. 2001). Patients have evinced interest in knowing the details of their recovery and realistic accounts of discomfort that they can expect. Addressing the cognitive component of pain is easily done through patient education (Carr C.J. Ellois. 2001). An audit at the Warwick Hospital found that although patient education booklets were available, the APS refrained from giving out this information. Besides, patients were not consulted in the development of the services Patients usually felt better and less ... Many used past experiences as reference for their expectations. Some studies found that patients had lower expectations of post-surgical pain. Patients also had a number of misconception related to the use of analgesia. This led to under usage of drugs and poor pain management. Understanding these factors can help nurses develop educational manuals for patients and help in better pain management (Taylor). H. 2001). The NIH has given Guidelines for the preparation of patient education and state the all communication must be, "clear, cost-effective, straightforward, modern, accessible, honest and respectful."(DoH, 2001) The Royal College and the Anaesthetic Association reported that 44% of hospitals had some form acute care services and 79% used modern analgesic techniques to manage pain (Carr C.J. Ellois. 2001.) A study of hospital services declares pain prevention to be one of the 10 most important indicators of care quality. (Susan M, 2003) While the need for management is acknowledged, the resources allocated for the function were found to be inadequate. In a significant finding, the Clinical Standards Advisory Group found that although 81% of the functions involve nursing care and 7% of these were headed by nurses there was lack of specialized nursing care in the chronic pain department. The situation was further made worse by inadequate funding. (Pain Society, 2001) Health professionals currently are found to have deficits in knowledge and skills for proper pain management. Nursing care is often found to be influenced by attitude of patients, their culture and value systems. (Redorbit.com, 2006) . The Services for Patients with Pain, in