Free Health Dissertations - Pain Management And Clinical Evidence In This Section We Discuss Ain
Pain Management and Clinical Evidence
In this section we discuss ain management considering Art therapy, cognitive behavioural therapy, group therapy, exercise and other conventional and unconventional methods of pain management used in hospitals and clinics especially following an operation or injury. Miles et al (2005) describes the experiences of people with chronic ain giving a more psychological picture to pain management. They use the method of grounded theory and use 29 chronic pain sufferers for their study. All these pain sufferers were interviewed at an outpatient pain clinic and following this study, the researchers developed a model depicting basic social and psychological processes of maintaining a normal life through constraint. The people’s perception of constraints imposed by pain such as bodily and activity constraints and even identity constraints were studied and identified. Through an evaluation of the impact of pain, the degree to which pain challenges activities and states that are normal is highlighted in the study. An evaluation on how people coped with the constraints if pain and how they perceived their life, and their psychological states were studied emphasizing on their psychological reactions as to whether they assimilated, subverted, confronted or accommodated their constraints as a result of the pain. The limitations imposed by the pain determine the coping efforts and the desire to retain the normal lifestyle may form the basis of coping strategies. Factors identified by Miles et al in pain management were restrictions and constraints, role of body techniques, identity management as adjustment to pain and pain acceptance and assimilation.
Patients’ own psychological barriers to recovery from pain have been studied by Jerant et al (2005) who identify barriers to patient self management due to chronic conditions. The study was conducted on 10 focus groups involving 54 chronically ill patients and 85% of them had multiple chronic conditions. The aim of the study was to elicit the perceived barriers in active self management to access self management support resources. Jerant et al stated that depression, weight problems, exercising difficulty, fatigue, poor communication with physician, low family support, continuous pain and financial problems were the most frequently noted barriers to active self-management. The most common barriers, in accessing self-mangement support resources as found by the authors were lack of awareness on pain symptoms and management, physical symptoms, transportation problems, and cost/lack of insurance coverage. The authors suggest that many home based interventions may be more effective any centralised facility-based program to overcome the barriers of pain management.
