Ethical issues in pain management

To review the ethical principles of autonomy, nonmaleficence, beneficence, and justice to assist in understanding nursing's ethical obligation to patients and families in the practice of pain management.

Position papers, government guidelines, and nursing and legal literature.

Cancer pain management has been an issue in nursing and medical practice for more than a quarter of a century. Today we have numerous organisations that focus exclusively on the issue of pain and yet the oncology patient continues to have inadequate pain control.

With the acknowledgement that we have the technical skills and the physiological knowledge to reduce pain, yet it is not being done, health care professionals have begun to explore the ethics behind pain.