The nurse on a postoperative care unit is assessing the quality of the patient's pain. To obtain this specific information about the pain experience from the patient, which of the following questions should the nurse ask?
a. "What does your discomfort feel like?"
b. "What activities make the pain worse?"
c. "How much does it hurt on a scale of 0 to 10?"
d. "How much discomfort are you able to tolerate?"
A
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A To determine the quality of the patient's pain the nurse might ask, "What does your discomfort feel like?" It is more accurate to have patients describe the pain in their own words whenever possible.
B Inquiring about what activities make the pain worse is a type of question directed at determining the pain pattern.
C Having the patient rate his or her pain on a pain scale is a method of measuring the intensity of pain.
D To determine the patient's expectations, the nurse may ask the patient, "How much discomfort are you able to tolerate?"
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