Nurse to Nurse Pain Management

Joyce S. Willens, PhD, RN, BC is on the Board of Directors of the American Society for Pain Management Nursing (ASPMN). She is also the interim editor of Pain Management Nursing, the official journal of ASPMN. She was previously on the journals editorial board. Dr. Willens is one of two nurses in the nation selected from ASPMN to the Content Expert Panel for the American Nurses Credentialing Centers new certification examination in pain management. She has authored many chapters on pain management and edited the 1996 AJN Book of the Year titled Pain Management: An interdisciplinary approach. Dr. Willens has chaired ASPMNs taskforce that completed the role delineation survey defining what pain management nurses do. This study was published in Pain Management Nursing and serves as a basis for test content outline

1. Brief pathophysiology
2. Types of Pain
3. Chronic pain syndromes
4. Negative consequences of unrelieved pain
5. Addiction, tolerance physical dependence and pseudoaddiction
6. Pain assessment
7. Pharmacologic interventions
8. Non-pharmacologic treatments
9. Side effects of interventions
10. Collaborative issues