Graduating nursing students' knowledge and attitudes about pain management

Unrelieved pain has personal, psychological, social, spiritual, physiological, and financial ramifications. Nurses have a pivotal role in managing a patient's report of pain. Graduating nurses need to understand their role in assessing and managing pain and must have the knowledge, attitudes, and skills to do so.;This study surveyed 63 students graduating from three different nursing programs and explored their knowledge and attitudes about pain management. Data revealed that these graduating nurses have appropriate beliefs about assessing a patient's self-report of pain but continue to have misconceptions about the frequency of opioid addiction. Deficiencies in knowledge about equivalent analgesic dosing, use of phenothiazines, and the concept of increasing an ineffective dose of opioid to increase pain relief were also apparent.;Results point to a continued need for improving the education that nursing students receive about pain management, especially the content related to addiction.