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The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic forced health centers to reorganize services and professionals to respond to the high demand for care (Jackson et al., 2020). During the first wave, many nurses worked in units/specialties other than their own, with longer work shifts and protective measures for patient care and infection prevention and control, which led to increased workload and fatigue (Houghton et al., 2020; Jackson et al., 2020). Likewise, lack of human and material resources and difficulty in communication and teamwork because of the mechanisms of physical and social isolation led to delays or care left undone (Ausserhofer et al., 2014; Ball et al., 2014; Kalisch et al., 2009; Kalisch et al., 2011; Obregón-Gutiérrez et al., 2022). One population most affected by delayed care is older adults with dementia, who have a higher risk of contracting and dying from COVID-19 or having complications derived from the virus (Liu et al., 2020; Scuteri et al., 2022).
Some studies have reported the COVID-19 pandemic's impact on symptom management, including pain, related to SARS-CoV-2 infection (Martinsson et al., 2021). Some studies also reported how pain management nursing roles changed during the first wave of the pandemic (Sowicz et al., 2022), and others analyzed “care left undone” and quality of care during the pandemic from a nursing perspective (Obregón-Gutiérrez et al., 2022). But, as far as we know, no study has evaluated variations in pain management nursing practice in older adults with dementia during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Several studies (Coker et al., 2008; Coker et al., 2010; De Witt Jansen et al., 2017a,b; Karlsson et al., 2015; Lichtner et al., 2016) focused on nurses' perceptions and experiences in relation to pain management of older adults with dementia in different care settings. These studies determined how different phases of pain management are performed and what barriers or challenges exist. Results report that, in addition to patients' difficulty in perceiving and expressing their pain, there are other barriers related to health professionals or care organizations in different health care settings. For example, a nursing care organization with different shifts and a high number of...