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Pain Management-The Resource Guide for Home Health & Hospice Nurses , Carol O. Long, PhD, RN & Bonnie M. Morgan, MA, RN
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Carol P. Curtiss, MSN, RN-BC
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This well-conceived book is written as a resource guide for home care nurses and hospice nurses who care for people with pain. It clearly achieves its purpose to provide evidence-based information and best practices for assessing and managing pain in home care and hospice. It would also be useful in any health care setting. Chapters are organized according to the nursing process, and include: Clinical Competency; Assessment; Determining diagnoses; Creating a plan of care; Implementing the plan of care; Including patient education; and Evaluating outcomes.
Chapters include information about comprehensive assessment, non-opioid, opioid and adjuvant medications used for pain, and a short section on non-pharmacologic interventions. The Appendices include an extensive list of Internet resources related to pain, guidelines for case management of the person with pain, ICD-9CM codes, recommendations for bowel management, and a glossary of terms. The authors identify evidence-based strategies and best practices for pain assessment and management throughout the book.
The book is well-organized and easy-to-read. Important reminders and key points are quickly visible in boxes in the margins throughout the text. A series of icons identify important points, cautionary reminders, check-lists for implementation strategies, evidence-based practice, patient education tools, nurse tools and standards, regulations and laws.
A particular strength of this book compared to other pain management texts, is its focus on the specific needs and requirements for pain assessment and management in home health and hospice care. The authors identify and clearly explain the parts of the Federally-mandated Outcome Assessment and Information Set (OASIS) that relate to pain, and provide clear direction for scoring these OASIS items. In my experience working with home care and hospice agencies, there is frequently a lack of understanding regarding how to score the OASIS items related to pain. This scoring error not only potentially results in less than optimum pain management, but also less than optimum scores on publically reported outcome measures related to pain management. The instructions for scoring are clear and the authors provide appropriate clinical examples.
The authors focus on the need to develop holistic plans of care and suggest a variety of strategies to address physical, psychological, social and spiritual aspects of pain and suffering. Tables in the text are clear and easy to read. Clinical guidelines and case studies are provided to assist the reader with calculating equianalgesic conversions for opioid rotation. The sections on patient and family education provide useful information and tools for any clinician, as well as suggestions that are specific to home care and hospice. Tools include "Promoting patient self-management", "Strategies to communicate about pain", "Developing a pain management schedule" and many other essential aspects of patient and family education.
This book could be used as an introduction to pain assessment and management for health care providers or as a resource guide for busy clinicians. It provides an excellent resource for home care and hospice health care providers, whether novice or expert.
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