Concept analysis
Concept analysis
Pain: A Concept Analysis
Perdue University Northwest
Pain is a very actual and universal topic. Even though it so actual it is still not understood by many. It is not just a feeling felt by someone who got hurt, but it is a medical condition as well. Now, this condition became so worrying that it is started to be seen as the fifth vital sign. In 1995, the American Pain Society (APS) set out guidelines delineating that a first step in improving the treatment of pain is assessment and recording of patients' reports of pain.
We all have experienced some pain in our life. For some, it was a paper cut, for others 3rd-degree burns, or maybe the emotional pain of losing a close person. Pain is seen differently and cannot have one definition for everybody and for every type of pain. A few categories of pain mentioned in the following examples are acute pain, chronic pain, and neuropathic pain.
Acute pain is a major public health problem and is associated with current suffering and impediment in everyday activities. The length of acute pain can be described as short. The time frame may be as brief as seconds or as long as weeks.
The article wrote in 2017 in Pain Medicine Journal states that effective management of acute pain is a major priority for both patients and healthcare providers. Inadequate control of acute and postoperative pain can lead to adverse outcomes that include pulmonary and thromboembolic complications and additional time in the hospital or intensive care, with associated increased costs. It can also have negative effects on mobility and function, emotional well-being, quality of life, and overall recovery.
Chronic pain is a long-lasting condition that someone has to live with. After reading multiple sources, one definition found in all of them is that chronic pain is one that lasts more than 12 weeks. It can be caused by a health condition, a treatment, problems of the nervous system, or the cause may be unknown. Results from the 2012 National Health Interview Survey show that bout 25.3 million U.S. adults (11.2 percent) had pain every day for the previous 3 months, nearly 40 million adults (17.6 percent) had severe pain and individuals with severe pain had worse health, used more health care, and had more disability than those with less severe pain. (NCCIH, 2016)
Neuropathic pain is an abnormal pain felt by someone without being injured and it is always caused by the damage in nervous system. According to Kenny (2016) “The function of the nerve is affected in a way that it sends pain messages to the brain. Neuropathic pain is often described as burning, stabbing, shooting, aching, or like an electric shock. Neuropathic pain is less likely than nociceptive pain to be helped by traditional painkillers.”
Millions suffer from pain daily and don’t seek medical attention because they do not understand this condition. With a simple look in the dictionary, we can understand how negative this term...
