Potter: Canadian Fundamentals of Nursing, 6th Edition

Chapter 31: Pain Assessment and Management

Key Points – Printable

• Pain is a purely subjective physical and psychosocial experience.

• Misconceptions about pain may cause the nurse to doubt the degree of the patient’s suffering
and be unwilling to provide relief.
• Knowledge of the nociceptive pain processes of the pain experience—transmission,
transduction, perception, and modulation—provides the nurse with guidelines for
determining pain-relief measures.
• An interaction of psychological and cognitive factors affects pain perception.
• A person’s cultural background influences the meaning of pain and how it is expressed.
• It is common for older patients not to report pain.
• An in-depth pain history should not be documented while the patient is experiencing severe
discomfort.
• Pain can cause physical signs and symptoms similar to the signs and symptoms of other
disorders.
• Patients waiting to undergo invasive tests may obtain some pain relief from anticipatory
guidance.
• The nurse individualizes pain interventions by collaborating closely with the patient, using
assessment findings, and trying a variety of multimodal interventions.
• Eliminating sources of painful stimuli is a basic nursing measure for promoting comfort.
• A regular schedule should be used for analgesic administration because this is more effective
than an as-needed schedule in controlling pain.
• A patient-controlled analgesic device gives patients pain control, with low risk of overdose.
• While caring for a patient who receives local anaesthetic, the nurse should protect the
affected limb from injury.
• When administering an epidural analgesic, the nurse needs to take steps to prevent infection
and monitor closely for respiratory depression.
• The nurse’s primary goal in pain management is to anticipate and prevent pain, rather than to
treat it.
• In evaluating the effectiveness of a pain intervention, the nurse needs to consider the
changing character of pain, the patient’s response to the intervention, and the patient’s
perceptions of a therapy’s effectiveness.
• Nurses must report any unexpected change in analgesic usage, or in the site, severity or
character of the pain.

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