Neep Help for Topic of Evidence Based Practice Project

[Wakes]

I'm in my master's program for family nurse practitioner. I'm starting my Evidence Based Practice Project and need some ideas. My original idea was to do "nurses perceptions of barriers to effective pain managment" (I'm typing fast- may by typos). My advisor says I need to get literature to support this subject. I'm having issues with this as I would most likely due a survery that looks at essentially what the barriers are: (ie no pain med orders, nurses lack of knowledge, md's not returning pages on time)

I work on a neurosurgery/neurology unit so we get a lot of spinal/cervical/brain surgeries.

I need ideas for topics for which there are already studies on that would be applicable to my unit. Any ideas would be greatly appreciated!! I'm not trying to take the easy way out but at this point I'm getting nowhere with my advisor.

Thanks

[lmccrn62, MSN, RN]

Why not attitudes of staff regarding pain management. Plenty out there. Could use a survey already developed to look at knowledge regarding pain. Then provide education to nurses and resurvey. I find the biggest barrier to pain is lack of knowledge.margo mccaffery and Chris Pasero have a survey you can find online and they will give you permission to use.

[BlueDevil,DNP, DNP, RN]

Yes, I agree. If you want your work to have any validity, you are going to have to use a tested assessment tool.

[Marshall1]

What about the effects of antidepressants on the healing brain? The VA and several other places have done research about starting an antidepressant shortly after a brain injury (regardless of diagnosis of depression) and the result show the brain heals faster/better. Would be something a little different and there are plenty of evidenced based articles on the topic.