From Hospital to Home: Guiding Nurses in Patient Wellness and Pain Management

For a nurse, assisting patients with chronic pain includes focusing on their physical, mental, emotional, social, and spiritual well-being, and there may lie the antidote for chronic pain. All aspects of holistic well-being intertwine intimately, affecting every area of the body, soul, and mind, as patients with chronic pain report a lower quality of life. Focusing on basic interventions that improve the patient's overall well-being can reduce the need for opioids, and thus reduce the patient's risk of becoming one of the over 6 million people with opioid use disorder.