Background:

Intensive Care Units (ICU) usually treat patients with pain. Being close to patients makes nurses key professionals for guaranteeing an optimal assessment and treatment of pain, which are crucial to ensure quality care. Therefore, this study aims to describe the knowledge and attitudes of ICU nurses about pain management in their clinical practice, and its relationship with socio-demographic data.

Methods:

Cross-sectional study carried out in a third level university teaching hospital ICU. The Knowledge and Attitudes Survey Regarding Pain (KARSP) translated into Spanish was used to obtain information about the knowledge and attitudes towards pain of nurses.

Results:

All nurses (n = 37) working at the ICU answered the questionnaire. The mean score of the questionnaire was 5.87 over 10 (SD: 0.98, range: 7.89-3.68). There was not a statistically significant relationship among the questionnaire score and age, professional experience, time worked at the ICU, specialized training or pain training. However, nurses with a master’s degree obtained significantly higher mean scores in the questionnaire (6.97; DE: 0.75 vs. 5.73; DE: 0.92; p = 0.018).

Conclusions:

ICU nurses show insufficient knowledge and attitudes towards pain. Having a master’s degree improves the results obtained in the questionnaire about knowledge and attitudes towards pain.