A RANDOMIZED CONTROLLED TRIAL OF NURSE-LED PAIN MANAGEMENT INTERVENTIONS IN NEUROLOGY PATIENTS
Keywords:
Neurology patients, pain management, nurse-led intervention, Visual Analog Scale, quality of life, randomized controlled trialAbstract
Background: Managing pain in neurology patients is a complex process that can be rarely solved using conventional methods and paradigms to enhance results. The design of this study was a randomized controlled trial which was aimed at assessing the effectiveness of interventions in the management of pain by the nurses on the reduction of pain intensity and on the quality of life of patients with neurology.
Methods: In this study, 100 participants were assigned to the intervention group and the control group. In terms of baseline data, age, gender, and VAS scores, we did not observe any statistically significant differences between the groups. Assessment of pain intensity and quality of life by using SF-36 was done at baseline, at Week 2, and Week 4. The significance level was set by using p-values.
Results: At Week 4 the intervention group had a significantly lower VAS score of 3.1 ± 0.9 than the control group of 5.8 ± 1.2 (p < 0.001). In the same way, quality of life also significantly increased in the intervention group to 35.4% in physical functioning and 25.8% in emotional well-being both of which with p < 0.01. The control group also demonstrated related improvements of 15.2% for the second variable and 12.7% for the third variable.
Conclusion: Intercessions in pain management that involved advanced practice nurses were effective at reducing the levels of pain and enhancing the quality of physical and emotional health among neurology patients. These outcomes suggest that such interventions may be a beneficial supplement to conventional treatment.
