Pain Communication Studies

Pain is not only defined as a sensation or a physical awareness, but also entails perception. Moreover, pain is an unpleasant and an uncomfortable emotion that is transferred to the brain by sensory neurons. There are various kinds of pain and how one perceives them is varied as well. Certain parts of the brain also play a key role in how one feels pain such as the parietal lobe, which is involved in interpreting pain while the hypothalamus is responsible for the response to pain one has. Although some believe pain is just a physical awareness and is in the body, pain is all in one’s mind because the perception of pain and the emotion that controls its intensity differs in individuals and when pain itself is administered to the body, the brain determines the emotions one attaches to each painful experience.

Non-English speaking citizens and immigrants are receiving improper medical care because of the miscommunication. The people who cannot speak English well are misunderstood, when they go to free clinics or hospital emergency rooms and attempt to explain their symptoms and illness or cannot understand the doctors or medical profession that are trying to help them. ” Interpreters are omitting questions about drug allergies. Patients are not telling nurses the correct symptoms. A mother misunderstood by putting oral antibiotic into the ears of the child instead of the mouth. The Puerto Rican word for mumps is not the same in Central America, so a child was mistreated. A doctor mistakenly told a parent to put a steroid crème on entire child instead of just the face” (Yolanda Prtida, 2005). Language barriers in the medical field are dangerous and some times even fatal. There is definitely a need for more translators in hospitals and doctors office. Clear communication is essential for safe quality healthcare. Poor communication can lead to disastrous outcomes, especially for patients with limited or no English ability.

The majority of patients in a hospital setting experience some degree of pain, yet each patient seems to deal with their pain in a unique manner. Pain is felt differently by each patient, as some people as more sensitive to painful stimuli. The techniques that each patient utilizes to deal with their pain can range from distraction to utilizing pain medications that their physician can prescribe them. Culture plays an important role in pain because often times, culture dictates the way that people act, especially during a painful experience. Throughout this paper, one particular patient’s post-surgical and chronic painful experience will be further explored, along with how culture influences pain, and my

Conceptual analysis is integral in understanding nursing theory. According to Walker and Avant (1995), concept analysis allows nursing scholars to examine the attributes or characteristics of a concept. It can be used to evaluate a nursing theory and allows for examination of concepts for relevance and fit within the theory. The phenomena of pain will be discussed in this paper and how it relates to the comfort theory.

The timing of prenatal care of most Mexican-origin women is relatively late compared to the pregnancies from other races and a lot of Mexican pregnancies have not received ideal medical care. The cause would be that they are encountering language barrier. In the article “Prenatal Care Experiences and

No evidence exists to suggest that older individuals perceive pain to a lesser degree or that sensitivity is diminished. Although pain is a common experience among individuals 65 years of age and older, it is not a normal process of aging. Pain indicates pathology or injury. Pain should never be considered something to tolerate or accept in one's later years.

The staff person did not take the correct approach in trying to communicate with the patient. The staff person should have made an effort to obtain a trained interpreter to speak with the patient. If unable to do this, the staff person could have sought to find a staff member who spoke Spanish. However, after touching basis on what the patient is seeking care for, a trained interpreter should be obtained. It is not appropriate to use family members as interpreters since this can result in a breach of confidentiality and misunderstanding of information. The patient son is also a minor, which is another reason he should not be used as an interpreter. This situation was not an emergency that required immediate need of a translator, thus an appropriate interpreter would have been the best approach.

What is pain? If you ask someone to tell you the definition of pain they will typically state something that hurts. Registered nurses should know the definition of pain and how it can be identified on their patients. However, Abdalrahim, Majali, Stomberg, and Bergbom (2010) propose that nurses did not receive adequate education in pain management and suggest the lack of knowledge hinders their ability to adequate control their patients’ pain. Therefore, the unethical treatment of pain can be traced back nurses.

Providing medical care to patients with limited or no knowledge of the English language can be very challenging. Miscommunication, different believes and issues can interfere with a good relationship between the health care giver, the patient and very often the patient´s family. I chose to include the patient´s family because the majority of the Latino population gives a big value to the family which is always present when there is a need to take an important decision such as health treatments.

Lack of interpreter services as well as lack of culturally and linguistically appropriate health education materials has been associated with patient dissatisfaction, poor comprehension, low treatment compliance, and lower quality health care (Advocates for Youth, 2008). For example, when predominantly Spanish-speaking patients were discharged from an emergency room, they were less likely than predominantly English-speaking patients to understand their diagnosis, medications, treatment plans, and follow-up care instructions. Consequently, predominantly Spanish-speaking patients were also less likely to indicate satisfaction with their health care and were often reluctant to return for follow-ups (Betancourt

For this I interviewed an individual who has cancer. He is older than me, different race, cultural background, ethnicity, religious beliefs and socioeconomic status. Un-fortunality, an integral part of his pain experience is the fact he also has a long history narcotics and drug abuse. He spoke with me about his experience, once he is diagnosed with cancer and started to have severe pain. Sadly, a major barrier he has been facing is being labeled with “a drug addict”. He states “ ..doctors, pharmacists, nurses along common people hold this past against me and always are suspicious..”. Moreover, he adds “..I am smart enough to play everyone – like I did in the past - if I want, but believe me I am not trying to I am clean now and just want to have no pain”.

One of the greatest things about nursing is that we have the opportunity to share with different cultures and learn about them. Our patients are complex; they each have their religion, culture, and life choices. Delivering health advice and not knowing much about a patient’s cultural background will influence how the patient may perceive the nurses’ advice. The article that I did my research on was published in 2011, by Perez-Avila, Sobralske and Katz; the name of the article is “No Comprendo: Practice Considerations When Caring for Latinos With Limited English Proficiency in the United States Health Care System”. In the United States, Hispanics form the largest minority. Most of this community has limited English

Patient, G.V, is a seventy-two-year-old male, of Hispanic origin, whom was born and raised in a small town called Jutiapa located in Guatemala, Central America. He migrated to the United States in the late 90’s, leaving behind his wife of forty plus years and his four sons. He came to reside in VA in a small town where he resides with his only sister and her daughter and two grandchildren. G.V. has lived in the United States for more than a decade, he has not mastered the main language spoken, English, but has a good comprehension of the language although he struggles to speak it. For the purpose of this assignment, everything obtained from the patient was through his native language, Spanish, and translated into English by the student nurse.

According to John Hopkins Medicine (n.d.), pain is an uncomfortable feeling that tells you something may be wrong. It can be fixed, throbbing, stabbing, aching, pinching, or described in many other ways. Pain is categorized as either acute or chronic. Acute pain is usually severe and brief, and is often a signal that your body has been injured. Chronic pain can vary from mild to severe and is there for long periods of time (John Hopkins Medicine, n.d). This paper will discuss a scenario that entails which person is experiencing the most pain, how two people can have the same procedure experience different levels of pain, factors that contribute to each person’s pain level, and two complementary/alternative methods of pain control.

She did not get a chance to choose what she liked, and her son is disable can’t do anything. This experience against safe, effective, and patient-centered. To gain more control, the hospital could keep trying to call both three languages to see if it could find anyone to translate for her. This would help her to ask why she was getting a C - section also, she should have a chance to understand the process and choose to sign them or not. According to Joshi Maulik, patient-centered is the proper future of medicine, and the current focus on quality and safety is a step on the path to excellence. (Maulik S. Joshi, 2014). Patient-centered is very important, especially with the who have problems with language. They need more help from the hospital and other community to make sure they are getting safe treatments, also hospital has the responsibility to make sure patients have right to choose the treatment or deny it. Also, patients understand the advantage and disadvantage of the treatment. Moreover, the patients need to know why they need to be treated, and allow them to ask question regarding the