Medical-Surgical Patients' and Registered Nurses' Satisfaction and Comprehensiveness of Patient Assessment Using the Clinically Aligned Pain Assessment Tool

Abstract

Background: The pain experience is complex, and nurses are challenged to objectively assess and document patients' subjective reports of pain. There is a clear need for an assessment tool that is easy to use and provides meaningful, actionable information for patients and nurses.

Aims: This study explored nurses' and patients' satisfaction with the Clinically Aligned Pain Assessment (CAPA) as well as nurses' charting.

Setting and participants: A convenience sample of adult patients and nurses on four medical-surgical units in one community hospital.

Methods: A quantitative, two-group comparison design between patients and nurses using questionnaires to determine satisfaction and a retrospective chart review to determine comprehensiveness of nurse charting.

Results: No significant differences existed between patients' and nurses' responses to seven of eight satisfaction questions The median score for seven of eight questions was 5 (using a 6-point Likert scale with 1 = strongly disagree and 6 = strongly agree), which demonstrated more than 80% agreement (somewhat agree, agree, strongly agree) among both groups that CAPA was superior to the NRS, based on individual responses. The one significant difference (p = 0.03) revealed patients were more likely to respond "agree or strongly agree" compared to nurses regarding the nurse thoroughly addressing patients' needs using CAPA. Inter-rater reliability using CAPA was determined to be 89.5%, and a panel of clinical experts determined CAPA had strong content validity of 88.33%. In addition, 70.41% of nurses charted comprehensively using CAPA.

Conclusion: As a result, CAPA was determined to be convenient, accurate, and valuable in guiding intervention decisions.