Özet:

Objective: To examine the knowledge, behavior, and clinical decision-making abilities of surgical nurses. Methods: The research was conducted in 95 surgical nurses working in a state and a university hospital. Data were collected using A Personal Information Form, the Pain Questionnaire, and the Clinical Decision Making Questionnaire in February 2018-July 2020. Data analysis was performed with SPSS 25 and legal permissions were obtained. Results: The statement “In cases where the necessary information about the surgery to be performed is not given, the severity of postoperative pain increases with increasing anxiety” received the highest number of correct answers (88.4%), while the statement “Opioids should not be given to patients with a substance abuse history because these patients are at high risk for recurrent addiction” received the least number of correct answers (7.4%). It was determined that 57.9% of the nurses observed the patient's behaviors to describe pain severity, and 76.8% of them used a pain scale in pain assessment. Of the nurses, 93.7% stated that the most commonly used pain relievers in their clinics were non-opioid drugs. Conclusion: It is noteworthy that the surgical nurses in this study had inaccurate/incomplete information about the use of pain scales and placebo, drug/opioid side effects, and non-pharmacological interventions. Furthermore, it was found that nurses experienced ethical dilemmas due to the risk of respiratory depression. Therefore, it is recommended to review the knowledge/practices related to pain management during nursing education/in-service training in order to increase the quality of pain management in surgical nurses.

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