Chronic Pain

Pain is a universal part of human experience and is defined as an emotional and sensory experience resulting from actual or potential damage (Merskey and Bogduk 1994). Pain that is experienced by any individual for a period of six months or more, disabling, thereby interfering with physical function is known as chronic pain. According to research, nurses are better able to relate with a chronic pain sufferer if they themselves suffer from chronic pain or has in time past being a victim to this “evil”.
Patients with chronic pain feel under pressure to prove that the pain they experience is real when they interact with health professionals. They feel a responsibility to provide evidence that the pain exists, so that health professionals may be able to find a cause and validate it (Johansson et al 999). This raises the issue of using objective measures to assess a subjective experience, because patients with chronic pain often do
Thomas by her article “A Phenomenologic Study of Chronic Pain” intends for nurses to be more patient, empathetic and understanding towards the plight of the patient with chronic pain. She indicates her purpose in the last paragraph of this essay by referring to the results of the research and hoping that “these findings can assist health care providers to understand the chronic pain patient and provide more empathic, supportive care”. Perhaps the personal experiences in this essay is able to correct the misconception of nurses about patient will chronic pain and they will separate the patient with acute pain (more commonly seen) from patients with chronic pain.
CAMP NURSE: MY ADVENTURES AT SUMMER CAMP –TILDA SHALOF
As nurses, as we care for those assigned to us, they become a part of us (our lives). It is almost impossible to forget those whose lives we touch every day in different ways. The assessment and nurse-client relationship begins for the nurse before the patient is aware of the nurse’s presence (in the waiting