The nurse is caring for a patient who recently had surgery to repair a hernia. The patient's pain was 7 out of 10 before receiving pain medication. One hour after receiving an oral opioid, the patient ranks his pain at 3 out of 10

Question

The patient asks the nurse why he isn't receiving more pain medication. Which is the nurse's best response?
a. "This medication can be given only every 4 hours. It is not time for you to have any other pain medication right now."
b. "I will notify the health care provider to come perform an assessment if your pain doesn't improve in 30 minutes."
c. "If the pain becomes severe, we may need to transfer you to an intensive care unit."
d. "It can take 2 hours for oral pain medication to work, and your pain is going down. Let's try boosting you up in bed and putting an ice pack on the incision to see if that helps."

Answer 1

ANS: D
The patient is responding well to the oral pain medication and it can take up to 2 hours for oral medications to relieve pain. Trying nonpharmacological interventions as an addition to opioid medications is appropriate at this time. If nonpharmacological interventions combined with the oral opioid are ineffective, the nurse needs to notify the health care provider and ask for a change in the medication or for additional pain medication. Saying that the patient has to wait 4 hours for additional pain medication is inaccurate because the nurse needs to provide further nursing interventions if pain is not relieved at an acceptable level for the patient. Admission to an intensive care unit is not typically necessary to manage pain following surgery for a hernia.