The Role of Nursing in Pain Management for Cancer Patients: Strategies and Challenges

Abstract

As care providers, nurses play an essential role in the management of cancer pain and in the implementation of various strategies. Along with nursing practice, a positive attitude helps patients feel safe. Pain is one of the most common reasons that individuals seek health care. It also causes people to lose work and productivity, and it affects the quality of life. Effectively treating pain can be one of the greatest contributions of the health team. Knowledge of the management and treatment of cancer pain is very important. Unrelieved pain can interfere with sleep, affect patients' activities of daily living, decrease appetite, and bring significant suffering. Thus, cancer pain management affects individuals, families, and society. Thorough pain evaluation, knowledge of pharmacologic and non-pharmacologic pain management, and an effective approach to the demands of cancer patients’ pain will help improve the quality of life for suffering patients. Nonetheless, pain remains a critical problem among cancer patients. Approximately 70% of cancer patients experience moderate to severe pain, which reduces the quality of life, impairs function and mobility, and leads to psychiatric illness. Pain management is essentially associated with guarantees for the human rights of the patient and is part of the commitment of healthcare professionals to life. A major challenge facing practitioners and other members of the health team is to propose new insights and future directions in managing cancer pain, which require new pathways and new mechanisms of action. (Pagani et al.2022)