Digital pens and pain diaries in palliative home health care: Professional caregivers' experiences

24Citations
Citations of this article
72Readers
Mendeley users who have this article in their library.
Get full text

Abstract

Frequent pain assessment by the use of pain diaries for the follow-up of pain treatment can facilitate the caregivers' work with pain control in home health care. The aim was to explore and describe professional caregivers' experiences of palliative home health-care patients' use of pain diaries and digital pen technology for frequent pain assessment. A system for the follow-up of pain treatment was implemented in routine care and evaluated by means of a qualitative content analysis. Three nurses, two physicians and one secretary were interviewed. Additional analysis data were collected from patients' medical records, and the system log. The caregivers showed a shifting outlook towards the pain-assessment method, an initial cautious outlook due to low expectations of the patients' abilities to use the pain assessment method. Despite this, the caregivers experienced positive outcomes in terms of an increased awareness of pain, and positive patient influences including increased participation in their care, increased security, and improved changes in pain treatment as a response to reported pain assessments. Pain assessment by the use of pain diaries and digital pen technology has positive influences on palliative home-care patients and supports the caregivers' focus on the pain.

Cite

CITATION STYLE

APA

Lind, L., Karlsson, D., & Fridlund, B. (2007). Digital pens and pain diaries in palliative home health care: Professional caregivers’ experiences. Medical Informatics and the Internet in Medicine, 32(4), 287–296. https://doi.org/10.1080/14639230701785381

Register to see more suggestions

Mendeley helps you to discover research relevant for your work.

Already have an account?

Save time finding and organizing research with Mendeley

Sign up for free