Association between knowledge of resident physicians with practice of morphine use among government hospitals

ABSTRACT

Introduction@#The efficacy of opioids for cancer pain has been proven. However, opioids specifically Morphine usage for cancer pain relief among resident physicians is still low. One of the major contributing factors to inadequate pain control is the healthcare provider’s lack of knowledge about cancer and non- cancer pain. Hence, this study was done to assess and identify the level of knowledge and practice of the physicians on opioid use for chronic pain.@*Methods@#A validated questionnaire on knowledge and practice was given to the resident physicians in training in 2 government hospitals in region 1 namely Ilocos Training and Regional Medical Center (ITRMC) and Mariano Marcos Memorial Hospital and Medical Center (MMMH&MC). Descriptive statistics were used to analyze demographics, overall knowledge and practice on morphine use among resident physicians and inferential statistics were used to test for comparative study between the two different institutions.@*Results@#A total of 83 respondents, 50 from ITRMC and 33 from MMMH&MC, 56 of which were females and 27 were males showed that the overall knowledge of resident physicians elucidates that out of 11 questions asked, they acquired half normative or mean scores of 6.44 in ITRMC and 5.61 in MMMH&MC, respectively. Resident physicians in both government hospitals do not use or give morphine use acquiring more than half, 27 out of 50 or 54.0% in ITRMC and 23 out of 29 or 79.3% in MMMH&MC.@*Conclusion@#The results showed that the level of understanding and knowledge on morphine use among resident physicians from both government hospitals is inadequate. Thus, their limited knowledge hinders the utilization of morphine use.