Pain management nursing : official journal of the American Society of Pain Management Nurses
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Those with mild traumatic brain injury (mTBI) often experience pain and symptoms long after their initial injury. A gap in current knowledge is how persons would prefer to monitor and manage these symptoms following mTBI. ⋯ Patients are interested in using technology to help with self-management of their pain and symptoms following mTBI. Tools that help patients with self-management should integrate into health systems and provide ways to effectively interact with providers during the most vulnerable phases of recovery.
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Adolescent idiopathic scoliosis is one of the most common spinal deformities in children and adolescents requiring extensive surgical intervention. Due to the nature of surgery, spinal fusion increases their risk of experiencing persistent postsurgical pain. Up to 20% of adolescents report pain for months or years after corrective spinal fusion surgery. ⋯ While adolescent idiopathic scoliosis is not often classified as a painful condition, providers must be cognizant of pre-existing pain and anxiety that may precipitate a negative recovery trajectory. Policy and practice change are essential for early identification and subsequent intervention.
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Opioid use disorder and overdose have reached unprecedented levels in many countries across the globe, including the United States, and pain is one of the most common reasons American adults seek healthcare. To address the interrelated public health crises of opioid use disorder and chronic pain, it is vital that clinicians practicing in diverse roles and settings possess the ability and knowledge to effectively manage pain, responsibly prescribe and monitor opioid analgesics, educate patients about harm reduction techniques, and treat opioid use disorder. However, future healthcare professionals are not receiving the training needed to competently provide this care. This gap in curriculum may lead to clinicians being unwilling and unprepared to address the current opioid and overdose crises, which requires a clinical understanding of pain and substance use disorders as well as knowledge about public health and policy interventions. To address this gap, we designed and are teaching an innovative transdisciplinary elective course titled "Opioids: From Receptors to Epidemic" for undergraduate nursing and premedical students. ⋯ In this paper, we present the course curriculum in detail, with the hope that educators at other institutions will design similar courses for their health professions students.
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Chronic pain is a distressing symptom that older adults with osteoarthritis (OA) seek to minimize through management. Research consistently points out the disparities that older African Americans face when managing chronic pain conditions, but a major gap in the literature is how pain care policy at the federal, state, and local level protects or exposes older African Americans to disadvantaged care. ⋯ African American older adults face numerous challenges in managing pain well. Navigating the healthcare system is an abiding issue, and perceived injustice in care was a common thread throughout the narratives. On the positive side, older African Americans also proposed practice- and policy-related solutions to counter the pain treatment challenges. Nurses are natural advocates for patients, and should work to change healthcare policies that unfairly marginalize ethnic/racial older adults' long-term ability to manage chronic pain.
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Although a transitional approach promoting continuity of care is warranted to prevent chronic post-surgical pain (CPSP) and opioid misuse, there is limited research examining interventions targeting the subacute phase after cardiac surgery. Contextual multi-level factors may explain this scarcity. ⋯ Based on perceptions of nurses involved at different stages of the continuum, the findings provide a preliminary picture of clinical challenges and potential avenues for the prevention of CPSP in the subacute phase after cardiac surgery. An expanded pain management nursing role in primary care would allow earlier interventions and contribute to the prevention of CPSP for a tremendous number of patients undergoing surgeries.