Pain management nursing : official journal of the American Society of Pain Management Nurses
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Pain occurrence among adolescents, whether acute or chronic, persistent or intermittent, remains high, with potentially serious effects on quality of life, physical and emotional functioning, and psychosocial adjustment. The prevalence of pain in adolescents varies widely, and although discussed in the literature for more than two decades, data on adolescent knowledge and pain self-treatment is scarce. This descriptive-correlational study identified pain prevalence and intensity and pain self-treatment choices among adolescents in a diverse urban community. ⋯ Gender also predicted use of self-treatment methods, with girls more likely to use over-the-counter medications and nonpharmacologic therapies. Number of pain sites was also a strong predictor of use of self-treatment methods among adolescents. Knowledge of the pain experience during adolescence will help guide community-based nursing initiatives aimed at increasing awareness, promoting knowledge about pain and its treatment, and ensuring safety and positive outcomes related to self-treatment.
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The interaction of nurses with chronic pain patients is often difficult. One of the reasons is that chronic pain is difficult to explain, because no obvious anatomic defect or tissue damage is present. There is now enough evidence available indicating that chronic pain syndromes such as low back pain, whiplash, and fibromyalgia share the same pathogenesis, namely, sensitization of pain modulating systems in the central nervous system. ⋯ In this article, sensitization is described as a model that can be used for the explanation of the existence of chronic pain. The sensitization model is described using a metaphor. The sensitization model is a useful tool for nurses in their communication and education toward patients.
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First published in 1975, the McGill Pain Questionnaire (MPQ) is an often-cited pain measure, but there have been no systematic reviews of the MPQ in cancer populations. Our objective was to evaluate the MPQ as a multidimensional measure of pain in people with cancer. A systematic search of research that used the MPQ in adults with cancer and published in English from 1975 to 2009 was conducted. ⋯ The MPQ is a valid, reliable, and sensitive multidimensional measure of cancer pain. Cancer pain is a subjective complex experience consisting of multiple dimensions, and measuring cancer pain with the MPQ may help clinicians to more fully understand whether those dimensions of cancer pain influence each other. As a result, clinicians can provide better and effective cancer pain management.
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Appropriate pain assessment plays a key role in understanding the pain status of critically ill children. However, the utility of the face, legs, activity, cry, consolability (FLACC) scale and the COMFORT Behavior (COMFORT-B) scale have not been extensively explored for children after cardiac surgery in China. A repeated-observation study was conducted to evaluate the concurrent validity and the sensitivity and specificity of the COMFORT-B and FLACC scales for pain assessment after cardiac surgery in 0-7-year-old patients. ⋯ COMFORT-B showed good sensitivity (86%) and specificity (83%) with a cutoff point of 13. FLACC showed excellent sensitivity (98%) and good specificity (88%) for a cutoff point of 2. The COMFORT-B and FLACC scales seem to be useful tools in pain assessment for Chinese children at postcardiac surgery stages, but the study identified that this group of children demonstrated a lower cutoff point for pain than originally set for these two instruments.