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Pain in Advanced Stages of Dementia: The Perspective of Medical Students

Background and objective: The number of studies related to medical students’ attitude toward pain is limited. The aim of our study was, thus, to assess the medical students’ knowledge of pain assessment and treatment in advanced stages of dementia in order to improve the existing curriculum in this...

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Autores principales: Neumann-Podczaska, Agnieszka, Tobis, Slawomir, Yermukhanova, Lyudmila, Wieczorowska-Tobis, Katarzyna
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2019
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6572279/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31035451
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/medicina55050116
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author Neumann-Podczaska, Agnieszka
Tobis, Slawomir
Yermukhanova, Lyudmila
Wieczorowska-Tobis, Katarzyna
author_facet Neumann-Podczaska, Agnieszka
Tobis, Slawomir
Yermukhanova, Lyudmila
Wieczorowska-Tobis, Katarzyna
author_sort Neumann-Podczaska, Agnieszka
collection PubMed
description Background and objective: The number of studies related to medical students’ attitude toward pain is limited. The aim of our study was, thus, to assess the medical students’ knowledge of pain assessment and treatment in advanced stages of dementia in order to improve the existing curriculum in this area. Material and methods: We analyzed the medical students’ knowledge about pain in advanced dementia based on a short questionnaire. The research was anonymous. The questionnaire was completed by 147 students. Results: The students most often suggested that pain in patients with advanced dementia could be manifested via body language and facial expression (107 students—72.8% and 100 students—68.0%, respectively). Vocalization was the third most frequently reported pain manifestation (84–57.1%). Other groups of pain symptoms (changes in activity patterns, changes in interpersonal interactions, and mental status changes) were indicated less often (p < 0.0001). Only five students (3.4%) listed the DOLOPLUS behavioral pain scale as an assessment tool for patients with advanced dementia, and 16 (10.9%) indicated observational scale elements or a necessity to observe the patient. Still, 110 students (74.5%) correctly characterized pain treatment in patients with advanced dementia. Conclusions: To the best of our knowledge, our study is pioneering in defining the deficits of medical students’ knowledge on pain assessment and treatment in patients with advanced dementia. We highlighted knowledge gaps in the area of pain assessment which might make medical students incapable of proper pain treatment. Following the International Association for the Study of Pain considerations regarding the need for excellence in pain education, these results can contribute to the improvement of existing medical curricula in Poznan University of Medical Sciences to include pain management in dementia in a more ”patient-centered” way in order to increase future staff’s competency and to assure a better quality of care.
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spelling pubmed-65722792019-06-18 Pain in Advanced Stages of Dementia: The Perspective of Medical Students Neumann-Podczaska, Agnieszka Tobis, Slawomir Yermukhanova, Lyudmila Wieczorowska-Tobis, Katarzyna Medicina (Kaunas) Article Background and objective: The number of studies related to medical students’ attitude toward pain is limited. The aim of our study was, thus, to assess the medical students’ knowledge of pain assessment and treatment in advanced stages of dementia in order to improve the existing curriculum in this area. Material and methods: We analyzed the medical students’ knowledge about pain in advanced dementia based on a short questionnaire. The research was anonymous. The questionnaire was completed by 147 students. Results: The students most often suggested that pain in patients with advanced dementia could be manifested via body language and facial expression (107 students—72.8% and 100 students—68.0%, respectively). Vocalization was the third most frequently reported pain manifestation (84–57.1%). Other groups of pain symptoms (changes in activity patterns, changes in interpersonal interactions, and mental status changes) were indicated less often (p < 0.0001). Only five students (3.4%) listed the DOLOPLUS behavioral pain scale as an assessment tool for patients with advanced dementia, and 16 (10.9%) indicated observational scale elements or a necessity to observe the patient. Still, 110 students (74.5%) correctly characterized pain treatment in patients with advanced dementia. Conclusions: To the best of our knowledge, our study is pioneering in defining the deficits of medical students’ knowledge on pain assessment and treatment in patients with advanced dementia. We highlighted knowledge gaps in the area of pain assessment which might make medical students incapable of proper pain treatment. Following the International Association for the Study of Pain considerations regarding the need for excellence in pain education, these results can contribute to the improvement of existing medical curricula in Poznan University of Medical Sciences to include pain management in dementia in a more ”patient-centered” way in order to increase future staff’s competency and to assure a better quality of care. MDPI 2019-04-26 /pmc/articles/PMC6572279/ /pubmed/31035451 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/medicina55050116 Text en © 2019 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
Neumann-Podczaska, Agnieszka
Tobis, Slawomir
Yermukhanova, Lyudmila
Wieczorowska-Tobis, Katarzyna
Pain in Advanced Stages of Dementia: The Perspective of Medical Students
title Pain in Advanced Stages of Dementia: The Perspective of Medical Students
title_full Pain in Advanced Stages of Dementia: The Perspective of Medical Students
title_fullStr Pain in Advanced Stages of Dementia: The Perspective of Medical Students
title_full_unstemmed Pain in Advanced Stages of Dementia: The Perspective of Medical Students
title_short Pain in Advanced Stages of Dementia: The Perspective of Medical Students
title_sort pain in advanced stages of dementia: the perspective of medical students
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6572279/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31035451
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/medicina55050116
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