Pain management nursing : official journal of the American Society of Pain Management Nurses
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Chronic pain is highly prevalent in older adults and often negatively associated with health-related quality of life (HRQoL). This study compared HRQoL, including physical health and mental health, in persons of differing ethnicities, and identified factors associated with pain intensity and HRQoL in ethnically diverse older adults. Older adults with chronic pain from four ethnic groups (African Americans, Afro-Caribbeans, Hispanics, and European Americans) were recruited from the Florida Atlantic University Healthy Aging Research Initiative (HARI) registry. ⋯ Multivariate linear regression analysis revealed that ethnicity, lower physical health scores, and lower mental health scores were significantly (p ≤ .01) associated with pain intensity. Understanding ethnic variations in response to pain intensity may address gaps in knowledge about HRQoL to reduce disparities in optimal care. Health care providers should consider ethnic norms and cultural diversity to provide optimal interventions for this population.
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Comparative Study
Effects of Listening to Music versus Environmental Sounds in Passive and Active Situations on Levels of Pain and Fatigue in Fibromyalgia.
In fibromyalgia, pain symptoms such as hyperalgesia and allodynia are associated with fatigue. Mechanisms underlying such symptoms can be modulated by listening to pleasant music. We expected that listening to music, because of its emotional impact, would have a greater modulating effect on the perception of pain and fatigue in patients with fibromyalgia than listening to nonmusical sounds. ⋯ This improvement persisted 10 minutes after the end of the listening session. In active situations, pain did not increase in presence of the two stimuli. Contrary to our expectations, music and environmental sounds produced a similar relieving effect on pain and fatigue, with no benefit gained by listening to pleasant music over environmental sounds.
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Patients seeking emergency care for abdominal pain still experience poor pain management. Pain intensity is not always seen as a mandatory parameter in the initial nurse assessment. Despite the development of nurse-initiated analgesic protocols, many patients do not receive analgesics in the emergency department. ⋯ Nurses in emergency departments play a crucial role, in that their initial assessment is of specific importance for the patient's further care and whether the patient may or may not receive analgesics. However, more attention has to be paid to patients' experiences and their expectations regarding the pain management in the emergency department. These complex questions have to be studied further in a more systematic way.
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Although central post-stroke pain is widely recognized as a severe chronic neuropathic pain condition, its consolidated definition, clinical characteristics, and diagnostic criteria have not been defined due to its clinically diverse features. The present study was undertaken to comprehensively review current literature and provide a more complete picture of central post-stroke pain with respect to its definition, prevalence, pathophysiology, clinical characteristics, and diagnostic problems, and to describe the range of therapies currently available. In particular, nursing care perspectives are addressed. It is hoped that this review will help nurses become knowledgeable about central post-stroke pain and provide valuable information for the drafting of effective nursing care plans that improve outcomes and quality of life for patients with central post-stroke pain.
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Despite evidence that many nursing home residents' pain is poorly managed, reasons for this poor management remain unanswered. The aim of this study was to determine if specific order sets related to pain assessment would improve pain management in nursing home (NH) residents. Outcomes included observed nurse pain assessment queries and resident reports of pain. ⋯ The proportion of residents who reported pain also significantly increased in response to increased nurse queries (e.g., "Do you have any pain right now?"), which underscores the importance of nurses directly asking residents about pain. Notably 70% of this long-stay NH population only told the nurses about their pain symptoms when asked directly. Findings uncover that using specific pain order sets seems to improve the detection of pain, which should be a routine part of nursing assessment.