Assessment of Painful Facial Expressions by Nurses and Its Relation with Their Clinical Experience

Aim: To investigate the ability of nurses to assess the painful facial expressions of pain patients and its relation with their clinical experience.

Method: The nurses who were a member of a social networking website were informed about the study and asked to participate. The study was carried out descriptively with 126 voluntary nurses. An online survey system was used for data collecting. The survey contained 15 questions for demographic information and clinical experiences. The nurses asked to score the pain level of the individuals in 12 photos obtained online by searching the keyword “pain patient”. For evaluation of pain; 0-10 Numeric Pain Scale was used. The data were evaluated with descriptive statistics, Mann Whitney U, Kruskal Wallis Test and Spearman’s Correlations Analyses.

Results: Female nurses were giving higher pain scores than male nurses (p<0.05). As much as the nurses stated that they believe their patient’s pain; the scores they gave to the photos were increased (p<0.05). The nurses who think that the patients exaggerate their pain behaviors; gave lower scores (p<0.05).

Conclusion: Nurses’ perception of pain behaviors can be affected by gender and their pain beliefs. Therefore; behavioral sciences related in-service training programs can be done to increase empathic tendency and provide a better nursepatient communication in painful situations.