Persistent Post-Mastectomy Pain (PPMP) is a common condition that can follow surgeries for breast cancer, the most common cancer in women. Because of the frequency of PPMP and its potential severity, it has received increasing research attention. This manuscript reviews the recent research literature, beginning with a brief history and then relevant medical, surgical, demographic, and psychosocial risk factors. Subsequently, social, psychological, and functional sequelae that have been linked to PPMPS are considered, as is research on current pharmacological, psychological, and rehabilitative approaches to treatment. The review concludes with a discussion of directions for future research and treatment that might reduce the incidence and impact of PPMP on breast cancer survivors. PERSPECTIVE: This article describes current research literature involving mechanisms, risks, and treatments related to persistent post-mastectomy pain. Implications of research findings also are discussed for pre- and post-surgical approaches to pain management, current treatments, and promising research directions.

Untreated pain inhibits activity in nursing home residents with moderate-to-severe dementia. Pain treatment in this group may facilitate engagement with the environment.

Compared with the other ethnic groups in the United States, African Americans have higher rates of hypertension, stroke, obesity, and diabetes, and higher rates of mortality related to stroke and cancer. Although many health disparities exist among African Americans, they are well underrepresented in clinical research. This article provides an overview of barriers that may influence participation in clinical research among African Americans. Issues of trust, experimentation, communication, and logistics are the most commonly identified barriers. The barriers and facilitators identified in this review may be useful in the development and implementation of recruitment and research strategies that are culturally sensitive and that may enhance trust and willingness to participate among African Americans.

Suicide assessment is a critical assessment skill set that can be effectively taught to nursing students using standardized patients.

While individuals with psychiatric illnesses are widely considered a special class of research subjects regarding decisional capacity and coercion vulnerability, those with physical illnesses often are not. IRB members (N = 127) read vignettes that described clinical research targeting one of two levels of disease severity (high/low) for psychiatric or medical diagnoses. They then rated decisional capacity, coercion, and risks for hypothetical research subjects. IRB members viewed psychiatric subjects as having greater vulnerability to coercion and less decisional capacity than medical subjects, even when medical illness was of a severity likely to engender psychiatric comorbidities. These results suggest that IRB members may inflate the vulnerability and decisional incapacity of psychiatric subjects, while discounting vulnerability and incapacity in medical subjects.