Quality of pain counselling for orthopaedic patients in the hospital: A cross-sectional study

Background: Earlier studies demonstrate that pain counselling for orthopaedic patients benefits quality of life and adherence to care. Aim: The aim of this study was to describe the quality of pain counselling for orthopaedic patients in a Finnish central hospital. Methods: A cross-sectional design was used. Data were collected from orthopaedic patients (n = 71) using the Quality of Counselling Instrument (CQI) and analysed using descriptive statistics including frequencies and percentages. Findings: Most participants were women (67%), and the mean age was 52 years. Non-pharmacological pain relief was rated as inadequate (69%). Counselling of pain treatment was satisfactory for about 38% of orthopaedic patients, but 20% of participants had not received medication counselling. Pain counselling was not always patient-centered (50%), nor was interaction (48%) and goal-oriented counselling (49%). Staff skills and knowledge of orthopaedic patients' pain counselling was satisfactory, although there were differences between patients with/without previous experience (p = 0.047) and different education (p = 0.008). Conclusion: Pain counselling is an important part of orthopaedic patients’ treatment and healing processes. This study identified that there is lack of use of non-pharmacological pain relief, and counselling of pain should be implemented in a more patient-centered way. Inpatient counselling should use more personalised approaches with diverse counselling methods.