Question

a) How does culture affect pain?

b) What are the social cultural influences of pain

c) Discuss the importance of culturally competent pain management in improving patient outcomes.

Answer 1

ANSWER :

1.Pain has mainly 3 components :

• Emotional
• Sensory
• Cognitive

☆Culturally pain is both physiological and psychological experience by the patient.

☆Every culture has its own language of distress when experiencing pain.It is based on :

• Pain perception
• Pain reaction - verbalized or non verbalized
• Coping with pain

2.Social factors which influnece pain:

• Age ,sex
• Social status
• Working environment
• Marital status and family life support
• Social support

☆People who are already anxious and fearful regarding pain perception will have less tolerance to pain and they wont respond well to treatment.

☆Older people are more sensitive and less tolerance to pain than younger people.

☆Intensity of pain perception is more for women than men,may be women are more anxious than men.

☆Lower social status people experinece more pain than higher status people ,may be due to the insecurity that leads to lack of control that produces physical pain.

☆When family and working environment is more stressful, these people have lower threshold for pain.

☆Lack of support from family and friends also have the similar effect

Cultural factors influence on pain:

• People who have strong belief in their religion they accept pain as inevitable and important part of life.
• In some cultures people feel that pain is a private and personal experience and they try to cope with pain silently without expressing.
• But in some cultures they express it verbally by crying and screaming because they think that pain is bad, need not be endured and should be eliminated fastly.
• African Americans have more intense and unpleasent feeling for pain stimuli compared to caucasians.
• People in some culture believe that pain is progress towards cure.
• Some have religious beleif that it is the punishment of god for their sin and they will endure it.

3.Importance of culturally competent pain management :

• Culturally sensitive pain assessment should be done in plan of care
• Health care provider should be aware of his/her own cultural beliefs , values and also be aware of the patients cultural background , beliefs and values.
• Discussion with patient regarding the care plan will improve their sense of control over pain and improves nurse patient relationship.
• They should accept ,respect and adapt to different cultural perceptions and expressions of pain so that they can manage pain efficiently.
• Without adequate knowledge in these factors can lead to over treatment or undertreatment of pain.
• In some cases patient may not respond to analgesics but responds with non pharmacological treatment ,shows how culture influences pain.
• Common vocabulary should be used in exploring pain issues.
• Some people express pain as non verbal cues (inspite of severe pain) , they should be encouraged to express pain honestly so that they can be treated efficiently.