Effects of a continuing education program on nurses' practices of cancer pain assessment and their acceptance of patients' pain reports

A hospital-based quasi-experimental (pretest and post-test) study was conducted in Kaohsiung Veteran General Hospital, Taiwan. This study was to evaluate a continuing education program (CEP) on nurses' practices of cancer pain assessment and their acceptance of patients' pain reports with respect to four types of misconceptions. A questionnaire was sent to on-duty nurses or head nurses with patient care responsibilities before the implementation of CEP ( n = 645) and six months after the program ( n = 630). The response rates were 92.6% and 91.3% for pretest and post-test surveys, respectively. The CEP was implemented in 8 weeks with four-repeated sessions of 4-hour lectures. A one-day workshop focused on cancer pain assessment and treatment was held 3 months after the four-repeated sessions. Several educational strategies and teaching materials were used in the CEP. The results showed that CEP made statistically significant yet moderate improvement in nurses' practices of pain assessment using pain rating scales (pretest 3.29±0.76 vs. post-test 3.48±0.75, P