Barriers to Pain Management Corrected

Identifying barriers to pain management in long-term careName
Institution
Identifying barriers to pain management in long-term careSummary
Unresolved pain has an adverse psychosocial and physical effect on older people. The article by Egan & Cornally (2013) seeks to identify barriers to optimal pain management in long-term care of older individuals. The author has utilized a quantitative, descriptive and cross-sectional to accomplish the research objective and indicates that patient-related barriers are more likely to interfere with the provision of optimal care as compared to the organizational aspects. Some of the major barriers to pain management include communication difficulties, challenging pain assessment, and the inability of older patients to complete pain scales. Another barrier to pain management includes time constraints in the care environment.
Research Question
The article has no clearly stated question. However, the research objective is clearly stated as the aim to investigate aspects of pain management.
Research Design
The author has used a quantitative, descriptive and cross-sectional design in the study. The chosen study design entails the analysis of quantitative data from a sample population. The advantages of the design include the ease of generalization of findings and the ability to use larger sample sizes. On the other hand, weaknesses include complex statistical analysis. The author has utilized the design as compared to others due to the need to measure the quantitative aspects of barriers to pain management.

Sample
The sample population consists of nurses working with older patients in LTC. A convenience subset of the population in which 83 participants provided answers to the questionnaire items is adopted in the research. Since the sampling is based on the respondents who can be accessed easily, the number of participants used is therefore adequate for addressing the research objective.
Data Collection
A self-report questionnaire is used as the main instrument for data collection by the author. The questionnaire was distributed to the respondents by the author. The researcher obtained an ethical approval to undertake the study. However, the gap is identified in the sense that the study does not address the ethical factors relating to privacy and consent in the use of data.
Findings of the Research
The research findings include the identification of aspects like difficulties in communication, challenges in the assessment of pain, and the inability of the older patients to complete pain assessment scales. The findings of the study suit the research objectives as the researchers have identified the major factors that are considered as major barriers to pain management. The credibility of the findings in the study is based on the use of a robust design and conceptual framework for undertaking the research.
The limitations of the study include the use of a small sample size that does not allow generalization of the findings to the larger population.