A survey of military health professionals' perceptions of an acute pain service at camp bastion, afghanistan
Pain Medicine, 07/05/2012
Polomano RC et al. – Overall, the majority of military health care survey responders indicated support for an acute pain service (APS) team as part of a Combat Support Hospital (CSH) care, and confirmed its contributions to improving trauma care.
Methods- The APS was directed by a U.S. Army anesthesiologist experienced in acute pain medicine who established an APS within a deployed British CSH.
- A brief 15–item survey was developed to assess impressions of outcomes, complexity of care, and satisfaction with the APS.
- Content validity was established through limited published surveys of APSs, expert review, and end user evaluation.
- The sample (N = 70, of which 61.4% were male) included 50% nurses, 15.8% surgeons, and 10% anesthesiologists who completed the survey at the end of the 3–month APS implementation period.
- Approximately 75% of the sample agreed or strongly agreed that injured soldiers managed by an APS obtained better pain relief than those who were not.
- With a 10–point scale, respondents rated how satisfied they were with the APS (mean 7.70 ± 1.7), how beneficial it was for patients (7.89 ± 2), and how important it would be to deploy an APS again to a level 3 facility (8.52 ± 1.7).
- Internal consistency reliability (Cronbach's alpha) for the 12–items measuring perceptions was acceptable, alpha = 0.82.
