Nursing’s Role in Cancer Pain Management

Abstract

Nurses have advanced practice, research, and education in the field of cancer pain management. This paper highlights the contributions nurses have made to pain science and practice through literature published in the past 3 years. Work accomplished by nurses is examined in the areas of pain assessment, pain management, intervention-based research, evidence-based practice, patient education, and palliative care. Nurses serve as advocates for empowering patients to engage in self-management of their pain, and offer education and support to patients and families at their most vulnerable times. Nurse researchers have been at the forefront of work to develop and test new instruments and approaches to measure pain, elucidate pain experiences through quantitative and qualitative methodologies, and gauge the quality of pain care for patients and its impact on their caregivers. This research has uncovered many patient, health care professional, and systemic barriers to effective pain control, and has offered feasible solutions to overcoming these barriers.

Relationship of nursing education and care management inpatient rehabilitation interventions and patient characteristics to outcomes following spinal cord injury: The SCIRehab project

“…Providing education about bladder and bowel management and skin customarily falls within the nursing domain while patients with SCI are in the acute rehabilitation setting, and there is evidence that the majority of the education that rehabilitation nurses deliver is dedicated to these topics. 2,5 While there have been some studies examining relationships of patient characteristics and type/dose of educational intervention with outcomes in the nursing literature, these studies have focused in areas other than SCI rehabilitation, for example: postoperative care, 6 heart failure, 7,8 pain management, 9 and called for sound research into the outcomes of nursing patient education. 10 As the population in general and with SCI ages, rehabilitation nurses incorporate concepts of disease prevention and wellness into the education process, 11 while simultaneously accommodating decreases in rehabilitation lengths of stay necessitating the use of available electronic education materials.…”

Control of Pain and Dyspnea in Patients with Oncologic Disease in Acute Care: Non-Pharmacological Interventions

“…Directed interventions for counseling, education for self-management, training / instruction, telephone follow-up, health literacy and nurses as case manager with interconnection with other health professionals and health services increase therapeutic adherence and satisfaction with care [10,19,22,24-26,]. Therapeutic massage, hot and cold application, positioning, hypnosis, transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation and music therapy are considered measures that improve the affectivity of medication regimen [26,10].…”

Control of Pain and Dyspnea in Non-Pharmacological Interventions: Patients with Oncologic Disease in Acute Care

“…Directed interventions for counseling, education for self-management, training / instruction, telephone followup, health literacy and nurses as case manager, with interconnection with other health professionals and health services increase therapeutic adherence and satisfaction with care [16,17]. Therapeutic massage, hot and/ or cold application, positioning, hypnosis, transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation and music therapy are considered measures that improve the effectivity of medication regimen [18,19].…”