Pain: a Concept Analysis

“Pain is much more than a physical sensation caused by a specific stimulus. An individual's perception of pain has important affective (emotional), cognitive, behavioral, and sensory components that are shaped by past experience, culture, and situational factors. The nature of the stimulus for pain can be physical, psychological, or a combination of both.” (Potter, Perry, Stockert, Hall, & Peterson, 2014 p. 141) As stated by Potter et al, the different natures of pain are dealt with differently depending on many factors. Knowing this, treating pain can be very difficult as there is no single or clear cut way of measuring it; “Even though the assessment and treatment of pain is a universally important health care issue,

What is pain? If you ask someone to tell you the definition of pain they will typically state something that hurts. Registered nurses should know the definition of pain and how it can be identified on their patients. However, Abdalrahim, Majali, Stomberg, and Bergbom (2010) propose that nurses did not receive adequate education in pain management and suggest the lack of knowledge hinders their ability to adequate control their patients’ pain. Therefore, the unethical treatment of pain can be traced back nurses.

Despite the availability of various pain assessment tools and management strategies, the prevalence of pain among older individuals remains high. Pain is a subjective experience that is difficult to validate or measure. If a patient is cognitively able, the gold standard of assessment is the patient’s self report. But in patients with dementia, the patient’s report may not be a reliable source due to cognitive impairment that makes it difficult to understand or to vocalize the pain they feel. There are multiple pain assessment tools that may be effective in pain assessment for individuals with dementia, but further research is needed. For best assessment of pain, nurses should assess expressed pain when the patient is at rest and moving through a variety of cues. Nurses should also include the assessment of other caregivers and family members who are familiar with the patient in a day to day

An ideal pain measurement, therefore, consists of following qualities: (1) it has reasonably high validity and reproducibility; (2) it permits meaningful comparison of the magnitude of changes; (3) it is applicable in both experimental and clinical settings; (4) it has a good correlation with physiological measures in both both experimental and clinical settings, and (5) that it is easy to deploy in both experimental and clinical

Pain is subjective and numerous factors may affect individuals pain experience, with physical, emotional, psychological, spiritual and cultural wounds. The severity of pain, however, depends on the individuals who are dealing with It (noble, 2006) As such no one approach to pain is effective for all kinds of individual pain experiences. For instance, Physical pains could be easily treated with pharmaceutical medications while emotional, psychological, spiritual and cultural pain are treated best by finding a resolution to the source of pain. Therefore, nonphysical pains are the most difficult pain to treat for they are not always real but perceived. Nevertheless, pharmaceutical medications are helpful to alleviate nonphysical pain temporarily

Chronic pain is a common condition that affects over 100 million individuals in the United States (Kirkham, 2015). Researchers have performed many different types of quantitative studies to examine individuals with chronic pain. There are only a limited number of qualitative studies that examine these conditions. The research paper reviewed 7 individual women who have suffered from various forms of chronic pain with an average of 12 years with the condition (Kirkham, 2015). A review of the data collected, the reliability and the credibility of the study will be discussed.

“Some old wounds never truly heal, and bleed again at the slightest word”- George R.R. Martin. Hurt is a course we all humans go through and it still have that attachment to you from the person who caused it to happen. Any little thing can cause you to have a flashback on your past. It's a lesson you go through but it's a lesson you never will forget. Its either going to make you stronger or weaker. The various meanings of hurt are highlighted by personal experience, literature and within popular.

There are a number of problems inherent to the presumed universality of the Wong Baker Scale. People from different ethnic and cultural backgrounds experience pain in unique ways that are often shaped by cultural expectations. The biomedical approach to pain management differs from that of many other health traditions from throughout the world. Culture influence and expectation shapes how we’re supposed to act, feel,

However, culture such as beliefs, family influence, and previous experience of pain cannot be ignored. Assessing pain relies on excellent communication between the child, family, caregivers, and healthcare professionals in the multidisciplinary team. Out of the many tools to assess pain, it is paramount to use validated and reliable tools appropriate for the age, cognitive level, culture, language, and ethnic background. Care personnel and parents of a child with an injury can help a great deal by providing vital interpretation of facial expressions and body positions because they are familiar with the child’s normal behavior. This type of practice is vital and effectively used with a cognitively impaired child who cannot self report their

Paula is a 66- year-old, married white female, admitted to the hospital for elective back surgery. She was two hours post-operative and had just returned from the Post Anesthesia Care Unit (PACU). When the nurse entered the room to assess her, Paula was curled up in the middle of the bed on her right side. She had the button for her Patient Controlled Anesthesia Pump (PCA) clenched in her fist. The nurse noted Paula’s positon in bed and offered to reposition her. Paula stated that she did not want to move. She was moaning, and had facial grimacing. Her blood pressure and pulses were elevated. The nurse recognized that Paula was in pain, and asked her to rate her pain using the Numerical Rating Scale (NRS). Paula rated her pain nine on a scale of zero to 10. The nurse educated Paula on how to use her PCA pump, and gave her a dose of medication that she had for break-through pain. An hour later, the nurse went back to Paula’s room to reassess her pain. She was lying in bed with her head elevated on a pillow, and she was watching television. Her blood pressure and pulse had returned to normal, and she stated that her pain was now a three on a scale of zero to

Pain is a controversial topic, and is understood as a comprehensive, relative experience. In the healthcare field, practitioners and clinicians are sometimes skeptic of patients whom experience pain when there is no physical evidence or history of medical procedures. No one alike experiences pain the same way, even if two persons with the same type of pain could have different nociception or perception of pain. The nature of pain defined according to the International Association for the Study of Pain (IASP) subcommittee on taxonomy (1979, p.250) “an unpleasant sensory and emotional experience associated with actual or potential tissue damage, or described in terms of such damage.” Meaning, there is potential or physical damage of tissue that can be seen as concrete evidence as well as, psychological pain described by some patients in a metaphoric sense of somewhat poetic measures e.g. burning, stabbing, drilling, or ripping apart. The understanding of pain is individual and subjective, but other factors influence the experience of pain.

There are two types of pain that can be distinguished by its durations, such as pain that is short lasting and it lasts from days to few weeks, which are known as acute pain (AP) and persisting pain that lasts over three months or more, which are known as chronic pain (CP) (Kramer-Kile, Osuji, Larsen, & Lubken, 2014; Lewis et al., 2014). The CP concept was chosen because the number of people experiencing Chronic Pain (CP) is increasing causing a decrease in people’s quality of life (QOL) and co-mortalities (Paul, Day, & Williams, 2016; Kramer-Kile, et al., 2014). Human body cannot be separate for its one entity. Thus, patients (Pts) with CP may arise from experience of both the Physical Pain(PP) and Psychosocial or Social Pain (PP/SP)

Managing acute pain in patients, along with post-operative recovery pain, is an essential part of nursing. Because it can affect each and every part of the human body, managing pain is important for the health and safety of patients. Effective pain management can increase patient satisfaction and overall well-being, fulfilling the role of a nurse. A nurse must be able to look at ways to manage patients’ pain, the ethical aspects of managing pain, along with how to educate patients on the matter.

The concept of pain is an all-too-familiar concept for most in our society. The majority of people today either know someone who experiences pain on a regular basis, or experience this phenomenon themselves. The nursing community is a population that has a particularly high rate of pain linked to work-related injuries as well as physical and psychological stress. Hignett described low back pain as being a high risk occupation in relation to low back pain (1996). While pain and its treatment occur primarily in the physical domain, there are also psychological and emotional components that are just as important, and the relief of pain and suffering should be approached holistically from all aspects.

Pain is subjective, caring for patients in pain can be very challenging especially those patients with a severe debilitating persistent illness. Several factors determine a patient’s tolerance and management of pain which include, age, cultural background, causative agents, and psychological issues with the patient. At several occasions through my nursing experiences have cared for several patients in pain, have come to a belief that pain can be challenging to manage in some cases when we health care workers don’t understand different kinds of ailments and the severity of pain accompanied with them. For instance, patients suffering from sciatica nerve pains respond differently from patients suffering from a headache. At one point I cared for