Instructions

With reference to a patient/client you have met on your clinical placement, please discuss the principles of pain management from a nursing care perspective.
– Please include in your answer details of the current theories, models, classifications and literature that you have used.
– If you have not met with a patient/client requiring pain management, please identify a hypothetical patient scenario involving pain management and apply the detail in point 2 above to how you would approach pain management.
– You are invited to use the details shared in class and on LOOP to inform your answer.

Some topics which you may wish to focus on include:

• Definitions of pain
• Communications in the management of pain & population groups
• The biopsychosocial model and how it is applied to pain
• Core components of comprehensive pain assessment
• Pain assessment across the lifespan
• Pain classifications; features and treatment/management implications
• Phantom pain
• WHO analgesic ladder; Pharmacotherapy in pain management
• Substance abuse issues
• Guidance on medication management; safety issues