Pain in onco-hematologic patients and its association with analgesia

Abstract

ABSTRACT BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: It is understood that in light of the increasing number of cancer diagnoses, one should intensify the quality of assistance offered to those patients, aiming at improving quality of life and minimizing suffering of patients and their relatives. Nursing assistance should be enhanced and focused on cancer patients' pain evaluation, to help pain characterization and, as a consequence, to improve multiprofessional assistance. This study aimed at characterizing onco-hematologic patients' pain and at associating it to offered analgesia. METHODS: This is a descriptive, prospective and longitudinal study developed with 20 patients with onco-hematologic disease admitted to the hematology unit, Hospital Universit�rio Walter Cant�deo. Visual analog scale and pain numerical scale were applied, in addition to multidimensional pain evaluation scale and McGil questionnaire. RESULTS: Primary cause of pain was intestinal infection. Acute pain lasting the whole day has prevailed. According to multidimensional pain evaluation scale, most commonly reported acute descriptor was deep, and of chronic persistent. Most commonly mentioned word of McGill questionnaire was unbearable, being the evaluative category the most commonly used. When evaluating analgesia, it was noted that 12 out of 20 medical prescriptions were incompatible with World Health Organization recommendations. CONCLUSION: Scales are extremely important to measure and characterize pain. The nursing team should be at the front for its implementation and use in hospital units, especially in cancer units due to the high incidence of this symptom.^ien