• K Y Wang, S T Ho, L P Ger, J J Wang, C H Cherng, and C C Lin.
• School of Nursing, National Defense Medical Center, Taipei, Taiwan, R.O.C.
• Acta Anaesthesiol. Sin. 1997 Dec 1; 35 (4): 201-8.

BackgroundThe purpose of this study was to investigate the barriers to receiving analgesics for cancer pain in Taiwanese patients.MethodsThe sample consisted of 128 hospitalized patients. All of the subjects were receiving analgesics. Three questionnaires entitled "Barriers Questionnaire-Taiwan Form (BQT)", "Brief Pain Inventory Short Form", and "Pain Management Index (PMI)" were used in this study. Data were analyzed using Student's t-test and Pearson correlation.ResultsThe results showed that most of BQT subscales including disease progression, time interval, tolerance, injection, addiction, fatalism and side effects were approaching toward the moderate or high end of the scale. 42.1% (n = 54) of the patients had negative PMI scores indicating that they were using less than adequate analgesics for pain. There was a significant difference between those who had adequate medication and those who did not, in terms of disease progression score and the total BQT score.ConclusionsOverall the result revealed that pain management in these cancer patients was inadequate. Misconceptions on the part of patients still exist. Educational intervention could be an effective means for overcoming such barriers in Taiwanese patients who received analgesics for cancer pain.

15 keywords...

hide…