• Bright Eze and Deborah Dillon McDonald.
• School of Nursing, University of Connecticut, Storrs, Connecticut.
• Pain Manag Nurs. 2020 Oct 1; 21 (5): 423427423-427.

BackgroundEffective acute pain management strategies are important for young adults in order to reduce risk for transition to chronic pain.AimTo describe pain and pain self-management strategies used by African American young adults.Design & SettingA national online cross-sectional survey design was used.Participant/SubjectsNinety-four African Americans Qualtrics panelists ages 18-25 who reported previous experience with acute pain responded. Methods: Respondents completed the Brief Pain Inventory Short Form to describe their pain intensity, pain interference with function, pain self-management, and percent of relief obtained from their self-management.ResultsAfrican American young adults reported pain primarily in the back (n = 22, 23.4%) and head (n = 19, 20.2%), with moderate pain intensity M = 4.5 (standard deviation [SD] = 1.79) and pain interference with function M = 4.6 (SD = 2.36). African American young adults described their worst pain in the last 24 hours as M = 5.7 (SD = 2.01), least pain as M = 3.4 (SD = 2.41), and average pain as M = 5.1 (SD = 2.09). They reported 61.3% pain relief from self-treatment. A total of 45 (47.9%) reported no pain self-management strategies.ConclusionsAfrican American young adults report moderate levels of pain intensity and pain interference with function. A significant number report no pain self-management strategies. Focused pain assessment and education about efficacious pain self-management strategies, both pharmacological and complementary, could assist young African Americans to reduce their pain and risk of chronic pain in the future.Copyright © 2020 American Society for Pain Management Nursing. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

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