A 52-year-old female patient is receiving care on the oncology unit for breast cancer that has metastasized to her lungs and liver
When addressing the patient's pain in her plan of nursing care, the nurse should consider what characteristic of cancer pain?
A) Cancer pain is often related to the stress of the patient knowing she has cancer and requires relatively low doses of pain medications along with a high dose of anti-anxiety medications.
B) Cancer pain is always chronic and challenging to treat, so distraction is often the best intervention.
C) Cancer pain can be acute or chronic and it typically requires comparatively high doses of pain medications.
D) Cancer pain is often misreported by patients because of confusion related to their disease process.
Ans: C
Feedback:
Pain associated with cancer may be acute or chronic. Pain resulting from cancer is so ubiquitous that when cancer patients are asked about possible outcomes, pain is reported to be the most feared outcome. Higher doses of pain medication are usually needed with cancer patients, especially with metastasis. Cancer pain is not treated with anti-anxiety medications. Cancer pain can be chronic and difficult to treat so distraction may help, but higher doses of pain medications are usually the best intervention. No research indicates cancer patients misreport pain because of confusion related to their disease process.
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