Pain-Related Distress and Interference With Daily Life of Ambulatory Patients With Cancer With Pain

Abstract

Assessment of pain-related distress may be important in planning interventions. Common nursing interventions may be employed to reduce pain intensity and pain-related distress, which may result in enhanced physical and emotional well-being.

Comparative Responsiveness of Pain Measures in Cancer Patients

“…54 Pain can occur in all phases of cancer and may be caused by the tumor itself, diagnostic or therapeutic procedures, or cancer treatment. 43,44 Cancer-related pain has a major adverse impact on functional status and quality of life 25,38,43,51,57 and, moreover, is undertreated in a substantial proportion of patients. 10,15,47 A national survey of a geographically representative sample of medical oncologists in the U.S. found that 2 of the greatest barriers to optimal cancer pain management were patient reluctance to report pain and inadequate assessment of pain by physicians and nurses.…”

Multidimensional Pain Inventory-Screening Chinese version (MPI-sC): psychometric testing in terminal cancer patients in Taiwan

“…However, test-retest reliability was not examined due to logistical concerns in readministering the test to hospice cancer patients. Construct validity was tested by five theoretically or empirically related assumptions: (1) higher levels of pain severity (measured by the MPI-sC Pain Severity subscale and four items in BPI-Pain intensity subscale) are related to increased affective distress (assessed by the MPI-sC Affective Distress subscale), mood disturbance (measured by the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale [HADS], one of the most frequently used depression and anxiety scales in cancer pain populations) [3,5,32,36], and decreased sense of control in life because of pain (measured by the MPI-sC Life Control subscale); (2) higher levels of pain intensity are related to increased pain interference with activities (assessed by the MPI-sC Pain Interference subscale and the Karnofsky Performance Scale [KPS]) [15]; (3) higher levels of pain interference with activities are related to affective distress (assessed by the MPI-sC Affective Distress subscale and HADS subscales); (4) higher levels of Pain Interference are related to lower Life Control because of pain (both assessed by MPI-sC subscales); and (5) higher levels of pain-related Affective Distress are related to lower levels of Life Control because of pain [10,11,17,18,20,21,27,33,35].…”

Present Moment Effects: Pain, Distress, and Cancer

“…Pain is the most persistent and incapacitating symptom as well as the most distressing symptom experienced by cancer patients (Wells, Murphy, Wujcik, and Johnson, 2003). The prevalence of chronic pain post-surgery for breast cancer frequently is attributed to postmastectomy pain syndrome (PMPS), which occurs in at least 20-68% of patients, yet it is often not identified as such (American Cancer Society.…”