Eleanor Usun, Uben
(2009)
Assessment of pain severity among metastasized cancer patients in oncology clinic and oncology ward, Hospital Universiti Sains Malaysia.
Other.
Universiti Sains Malaysia.
(Submitted)
Abstract
Cancer pain is the most feared and burdensome symptom. Previous
studies have shown that despite the advances of modern treatment modalities
for cancer pain, cancer patients by large at a later stage still experienced
severe cancer pain. Nurses need to understand these pain experiences by
patients to give them the best of care. Therefore, the purposes of this study
are (1) to determine the pain severity among metastasized cancer patients;
and (2) to determine if there is any difference of the pain severity in relation to
age, gender, marital status and occupation. The Multidimensional Model of
Cancer Pain (McGuire, 1992) was used to guide this cross sectional,
descriptive study which was conducted in the Oncology wards and clinic in
HUSM Kelantan. The translated version of Brief Pain Inventory was used to
collect the info~mation from the total of 65 female and male cancer patients,
with age ranging from 18 to 73 years (50.45 mean age). There was 33 cancer
patients at stage Ill and 32 at stage IV and nearly half (47.7%) reported they
were given analgesics.
By using the Chi square test, the research findings show that 36%
female patients reported significant pain than 18.5% male. Among all of the
respondents, 15.8% of the elderly reported significant pain compare to 84.2%
adults aged within 18 to 59 years old reported significant pain. More Malays
reported significant pain (31.5%) compare to Chinese (18.2%). There are 50%
unmarried patients reported significant pain compare to 23.5% of married
respondents reported significant pain. The result also show that 25.5%
working patients reported significant pain while 32.4% of non working patients reported significant pain. However, the differences in pain severity in relation
to age, gender, ethnic, marital status and occupation were not significant
(p>0.05). The study found that osteosarcoma patients and evidence of bone
metastasized reported to have the highest prevalence of severe pain as
compared to other cancer patients.
This study found that more than two third cancer patients experienced
mild pain of less than 4 scores (p>0.05). The three highest life activities that
were being interfered by cancer pain were "life enjoyment" (mean=5.94,
SD=2.46), "mood" (mean=4.12, SD=2.45) and "general activity" (mean=3.4,
SD=2.99)
The limitation of this study is its small sample size. Some cancer
patients refused to participate due to pain from cancer and treatment. The
study did not take into account the differentiation between disease related
pain and treatment pain and the length of time patients were admitted to the
hospital. Thus, it is recommended that future studies take into account the
differentiation and length of hospitalization. The findings highlighted that
sociodemographic data such as age, gender, ethnicity, marital status and
occupation can influence cancer patient's perception and responses to pain in
difference ways. Thus, the nurses' awareness of the overall pain severity
experienced by cancer patients is important.
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