Pain management in wound care: taking a holistic approach

Wound pain continues to be challenging for health professionals and patients. Patients report that it is the most difficult part of their wound-healing journey, subsequently affecting their quality of life. Key to providing a patient-centred plan of care are robust holistic and wound pain assessments, along with the identification of factors that can impact on the wound-healing journey. This article provides some key information from research, highlighting the differences between general pain and wound pain, the categorisation of types of pain, assessment tools, what types of procedures can impact and cause trauma and further pain, along with both pharmacological and non-pharmacological pain-management techniques.