When planning care for a client with painful burn dressing changes, when should the nurse administer morphine?

Administering morphine 60 minutes before a painful procedure, such as a dressing change for burns, allows sufficient time for the medication to take effect. Morphine is an opioid analgesic that can provide effective pain relief, but it generally requires time to reach its peak effectiveness in the body. By timing the administration of morphine an hour prior, the nurse ensures that the client is experiencing optimal analgesia during the procedure, thereby minimizing pain and discomfort associated with the dressing change.

In this context, the other options fail to optimize pain management. Administering morphine only 15 minutes before the dressing change might not provide adequate pain relief, as the drug may not have time to take full effect. Giving it alongside a stool softener does not relate to the timing necessary for effective analgesia and may not address the immediate need for pain relief prior to the procedure. Only administering morphine based on a pain rating of 8 to 10 neglects proactive pain management, as it is important to manage pain preventively rather than reactively in such cases, particularly if the dressing change is a scheduled and known painful intervention.