Clients’ satisfaction with pain management by healthcare providers during sickle cell crisis in selected health facilities in Ogun State Nigeria – a cross sectional study

Introduction:
Vaso-occlusive crises leading to pain are the hallmark of sickle cell disease (SCD). The aim of the study is to assess satisfaction of client with pain management strategies adopted by healthcare providers in the management of sickle cell crises.

Material and methods:
This quantitative cross-sectional study was conducted by employing a multi-stage sampling technique in selecting the 2 SCD clinics across tertiary hospitals. In all, 114 clients who met the inclusion criteria participated in the study.

Results:
The majority of the participants were of ages 18 years to 20 years, mostly students with SS genotype. A high proportion of partici-pants (52.0%) experienced a mild level of pain, while 2% reported severe pain within 6 months prior the study. The majority (67.5%) of the participants were placed on pharmacological strategies. Many of the participants (95.0%) were very satisfied with pain management strategy given to them. There is no statistically significant difference between the level of pain experienced by the participant and the administered pain management (F(2,111) = 0.591, p = 0.92). Also, there is no statistically significant difference between the client’s pain-comfort and healthcare provider’s methods of pain management during SCD crisis (F(2,111) = 0.485, p = 0.422). It is expedient to set up a more detailed pain assessment tool for the evaluation of the level of pain of SCD patients.

Conclusions:
The study concluded that pharmacological and non-pharmacological approaches can be further adopted by healthcare providers to aid in the delivery of more efficient pain management to SCD clients so as to boost the level of satisfaction of SCD patients.