TABLE 3.

Responses of nursing home staff (n=123) to the 17 items

Component Item		Completely disagree, %	Disagree to some extent, %	No opinion, %	Agree to some extent, %	Completely agree, %
1	Older people experience pain less intensely than younger people	44*	30*	15	7	2
	Pain medication works better in young people than in the elderly	26*	31*	35*	7	2
	Pain medication works longer in the elderly than in young people	25*	29*	38*	7	0
	Pain medication has more side effects in the elderly than in younger people	14	26*	44*	14	2
	Dementia patients experience less pain than non-dementia patients	43*	29*	13	14	1
	Assessing pain in a dementia patient is a matter of guessing	28*	34*	31*	5	1
2	Where I work, pain is assessed correctly	0	6	11	59*	24
	Where I work, pain is treated correctly	0	7	9	54*	29*
	Where I work, much attention is given to pain in dementia patients	1	4	15	48*	32*
3	Pain medication should only be administered to patients suffering from severe pain	42*	40*	13	3	2
	Patients are often prescribed too much pain medication	28*	47*	18	6	2
	It is better to administer pain medication ‘when necessary’, rather than according to a fixed schedule	17	26*	32*	20	5
	Administering pain medication should be postponed as long as possible, because dementia patients should receive as little pain medication as possible	56*	31*	11	2	0
	A dementia patient should first report pain before receiving the next dose of pain medication	39*	31*	18	11	2
4	Pain is part of the aging process	35*	20	26*	15	4
	Older people are affected by pain more often than younger people	20	17	27*	28*	9
	Pain medication, if administered in large quantities, easily leads to addiction among the elderly	19	22	40*	16	2

^*Extreme scores (arbitrary cut-off scores were determined at scores higher than 25%)