Essential Questions:
1. Define pain and discuss its importance in health care and its elimination's importance in healing.
2. What are the neuroregulators of pain and what are their functions? What are the benefits of pain management? What is the role of adequate sleep in decreasing pain? What is the role of exercise in pain management?
3. Discuss physiological, social and psychological, and cultural factors influencing pain.
4. What are some possible sources for error in pain assessment? Why is it so important to listen to the patient's report of pain? How does pain influence behavior and ADLs? What are some ways to control painful stimuli in the patient's environment? What barriers exist to effective pain management?
5. Discuss pharmacologic and nonpharmacologic interventions for pain, including massage and other cutaneous stimulation, music and other distraction, and relaxation.
Content Goals:
1. Explain the nursing knowledge necessary for care that addresses the comfort needs of adult med-surg patients.
2. Describe assessment techniques to identify factors that affect comfort needs in adult med-surg patients.
3. Explain how to use the nursing process as a clinical decision-making strategy for providing care that addresses the comfort needs of adult med-surg patients.
4. Describe and prioritize caring nursing interventions that address the comfort needs of adult med-surg patients.
5. Describe prevention strategies that address the comfort needs of adult med-surg patients.
6. Describe medications that pertain to the pain needs of an adult patient
7. Practice communication techniques, including information technologies that address the comfort needs of an adult med-surg patient.
8. Identify teaching strategies for health instruction that address the comfort needs of adult med-surg patients.
9. Identify professional nursing behaviors in the clinical setting applicable to the care of adult med-surg patients experiencing alterations in comfort.
Meets Course Outcomes: 1 – 8