preview

Pain Management Essay

Better Essays

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.
Since Abdalrahim et al. (2010) stated that nurses are not being properly educated in pain and pain management here is some different definitions and examples. According to Engebretson, Monsivais, & Mahoney (2006), “Pain …show more content…

JCAHO (2011) also stated that patients and their families needed to be educated about pain and how the patients’ pain is going to be managed. Every patient perceives and exhibits pain in a different manner and if nurses do not assess the patient thoroughly they can miss it. For instance, Engebretson et al. (2006) acknowledged that, patients manifest pain in different ways and this resulted in nurses performing an inadequate assessment of their patients’ pain. Also, Engebretson et al. recognized that patients often conceal their pain because they do not want to be viewed by staff as complainers or addicts, and if patients decide to speak up the nurses frequently view their patients’ statements from their own cultural, moral and ethical belief system and not their patients which leaves the patients’ pain untreated.
Trossman (2006) states that at least 50% of patients are suffering from moderate to severe pain at their time of death, that 70 million Americans experience pain throughout their activities of daily living and that nurses hold the keys to pain management. According to Abdalrahim et al. (2010) there have been countless evidence-based studies regarding pain management; nevertheless, the inability to control the patients’ pain has increased due to nurses often devaluing the information they receive from the patients about their current pain level, these actions are directly related to a withholding of

Get Access