Patient Goals in Hospice Cancer Pain Management: A Total Pain Case Scenario

Area of Science:

• Palliative Care Nursing
• Pain Management
• Oncology Nursing

Background:

• Clinical guidelines mandate holistic assessment of cancer pain, including physical, psychological, social, and spiritual aspects.
• Hospice nurses are directed to assess patient goals for pain management.
• Current practice lacks developed methods for assessing and documenting patient goals beyond pain intensity.

Purpose of the Study:

• To address the gap in assessing and documenting patient-specific goals for cancer pain management in hospice care.
• To integrate theoretical knowledge of pain with clinical guideline recommendations for nursing practice.
• To provide an empirically based approach for nurses to incorporate meaningful patient goals into care plans.

Main Methods:

• A scenario-based approach merging theoretical pain concept analyses with clinical guideline recommendations.
• Discussion of the importance of holistic pain assessment and goal setting.
• Identification of the need for further research in developing pain goal assessment tools.

Main Results:

• Holistic pain assessment should encompass physical, psychological, social, and spiritual dimensions.
• Ascertaining patient goals beyond pain intensity is a critical but underdeveloped area in hospice nursing.
• Current pain assessment instruments do not adequately include personally meaningful patient goals.

Conclusions:

• Nurses can utilize an empirically based approach to inquire about and integrate patient goals into hospice care plans.
• Further research is essential to develop validated tools for assessing patient goals in pain management.
• Routine inclusion of meaningful patient goals enhances the comprehensiveness of hospice care plans for cancer pain.