Introduction
Cancer patients suffer from severe pain during the medication process and after recovery. This consideration calls for critical interventive measures to manage pain for cancer patients. Fundamentally, pain management is essential to the nursing profession, and nurses must enact sustainable measures to help reduce the agony experienced by various patients. Cancer treatment techniques such as chemotherapies are painful and significantly deteriorate a patient’s health. Hence, nurses should focus on pain management since it improves the quality of life and hastens recovery. This paper identifies various pain management tips relevant to cancer patients. The pain management strategies involve utilizing opioid drugs and other relaxation modes such as massage, hypnotherapy, and meditation. The PICOT question under scrutiny is “in people living with cancer (P), how do pharmacological methods (I), compared to non-pharmacological modes (C), impact pain (O), during cancer treatment (T)”.
Methods
Developing this paper required critiquing the existing literature base relevant to the current PICOT question. The student used three credible search engines to select scholarly articles for the current report: google scholar, PubMed, and the National Library of Medicine. The researcher used various terms, such as “pain in cancer patients” and “pain management methods for cancer treatment”, to identify the sources. This paper required the use of credible sources that offered reliable data. Treatment procedures change regularly due to innovation and technology used in healthcare interventions. Hence, the student focused on current articles published within the last five years. Such a move guaranteed the development of a paper that covers all novel techniques for managing pain among cancer patients. Therefore, the utilized scholarly articles are relevant to the PICOT question and significantly help define existing pain management strategies for cancer patients.
Literature Review
Article 1 (Telemedicine in Cancer Pain Management)
This article is relevant in answering the PICOT question on managing pain for cancer patients. The piece discloses the role of technology in pain management and offers various measures to control agony for people with cancer. Fundamentally, this article is crucial for the current research since it utilizes graphs to convey essential information and employs many participants, 164 and 375 video talks. However, the piece fails to disclose the percentage of participants not satisfied with telehealth approaches to managing pain in cancer patients. The article reveals the effectiveness of telemedicine in various medical procedures and notes that chronic cancer pain is manageable through multidisciplinary and skilled strategies (Cascella et al., 2022). Telemedicine is effective in chronic pain management since it simplifies medical procedures. For instance, Cascella et al. (2022) noted that telemedicine ensures effective communication between healthcare experts and patients, causing proper intervention and aiding in pain management. Hence, this strategy heightens virtual consultations between oncologists, pain management experts, and patients, triggering effective recovery.
Telemedicine supports the role of advanced technology in boosting patient outcomes and improving life quality. Consequently, Cascella et al. (2022) claimed that telemedicine guarantees remote monitoring, where oncologists monitor patients’ progress online and offer necessary advice accordingly. This aspect allows medics to prescribe effective drugs based on patients’ progress, marking the need for telemedicine in managing pain among cancer patients. Hence, telemedicine supports the pharmacological mode of managing pain for people with cancer since health experts monitor patients’ progress and offer medication they deem fit for particular symptoms. Additionally, healthcare practitioners use telemedicine to educate patients on effective measures to combat pain, such as massage, hypnotherapy, and meditation. These benefits linked to telemedicine identify novel methods of managing chronic pain among cancer patients.
Article 2 (Pharmacological Intervention in Managing Pain in Cancer Survivors)
The student found this article by searching “pharmacological Interventions to manage pain among cancer patients” in the google scholar search engine. The article is relevant in answering the current PICOT question since it focuses on pain management tips for cancer patients. Markedly, the authors claimed that cancer recovery has increased in the United States and globally. Glare et al. (2022) noted that intensified screening, diagnosis, and novel treatment methods account for increased recovery rates for cancer patients. However, the article focused on the plight of recovered individuals since the scholars noted that 40% of cancer survivors live with extreme chronic pain (Glare et al. (2022). This aspect accounts for the need to research pharmacological approaches to manage pain for these survivors to ensure high quality of life and improve public health outcomes.
Several pharmacological pain management tips can help improve cancer survivors’ conditions. These strategies include opioid prescriptions and adherence to pharmacological and non-pharmacological measures such as meditation, yoga, and massage (Glare et al. (2022). Glare et al. (2022) identified multiple causes of pain for cancer survivors, including post-surgical agony and chemotherapy-linked neuropathy. The paper is significant to the current research since it offers various modes to overcome pain after healing from cancer. For instance, the article reveals the role of new medications, such as novel opioids, a-adrenergic agonists, and oxytocin, in managing pain for cancer survivors (Glare et al. (2022). Therefore, the critiqued article is significant to the current research and sufficiently answers the PICOT question.
Article 3 (Managing Breast Cancer)
Breast cancer is one of the most cancers that significantly affect women. The article identifies measures to guarantee optimal health outcomes among breast cancer patients. According to Mutebi et al. (2020), a timely diagnosis and prevalence of organized multidisciplinary care play a fundamental role in managing pain and heightening recovery for breast cancer patients. The cancer response team should encompass various healthcare practitioners, including oncologists, nurses, and pharmacists. Such a move ensures effective care and guarantees hastened recovery for these patients. This article is relevant in answering the current PICOT question since it supports the role of pharmacological interventions and therapies in controlling pain among people with breast cancer. Nevertheless, the article reveals hindrances to optimal care for breast cancer patients, such as financial constraints, inadequate resources, and a relatively incompetent workforce, especially in underdeveloped countries (Mutebi et al., 2020). Such a factor makes the scholarly article relevant since it identifies a gap that causes health disparities to disadvantaged groups, leaving a gap to research on effective countermeasures to overcome such disparities. Therefore, the scrutinized articles above are significant in answering the PICOT question and offering relevant data on pain management tips for cancer patients.
Conclusion
Pain management is significant in nursing as it directly relates to the quality of life and patient satisfaction. The current PICOT question is how pharmacological methods, compared to non-pharmacological strategies, impact pain for cancer patients. The analyzed research articles have offered essential information on this question. Cancer treatment experts should combine pharmacological and non-pharmacological modes to ensure high outcomes and reduce pain. However, the best solution to managing pain for cancer patients is utilizing telemedicine and new drugs to reduce pain among cancer patients. The methods will significantly improve healthcare outcomes and reduce pain for cancer patients.
References
Cascella, M., Coluccia, S., Grizzuti, M., Romano, M. C., Esposito, G., Crispo, A., & Cuomo, A. (2022). Satisfaction with telemedicine for cancer pain management: a model of care and cross-sectional patient satisfaction study. Current Oncology, 29(8).
Glare, P., Aubrey, K., Gulati, A., Lee, Y. C., Moryl, N., & Overton, S. (2022). Pharmacologic management of persistent pain in cancer survivors. Drugs, 82(3), 275-291.
Mutebi, M., Anderson, B. O., Duggan, C., Adebamowo, C., Agarwal, G., Ali, Z., … & Eniu, A. (2020). Breast cancer treatment: A phased approach to implementation. Cancer, 126, 2365-2378.
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