Analysis of pain content in nursing textbooks

This paper reports on one goal of a project designed to improve end-of-life (EOL) care in nursing education. The goal was to improve the content regar ding pain and EOL care included in major nursing textbooks. A descriptive s tudy used content analysis of 50 textbooks selected from a potential of ove r 700 texts used in nursing education. The 50 texts included 45,683 pages. The text review was conducted using an analysis framework and included cont ent analysis as well as quantification of the content present in the texts. While pain was the most common topic in the texts, the 248 pages of pain c ontent represents only 0.5 % of total text content. All nine nl-ens of EOL content (902 pages) comprised only 2% of overall text. Particular weaknesse s in the review of pain content were recognized in pharmacologic management of pain. In summary nursing texts have limited content on pain. Increased attention to this area Is Essential to prepare nurses to care for patients at the end of life. (C) U.S. Cancer Pain Relief Committec, 2000.