Chapter 22: Cancer pain assessment and management
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Related theory
Many factors influence the expression of pain and may be associated with the patient, the nurse or the clinical environment (organizational aspects) (Briggs [22], Carr and Mann [32]). Pain can have many dimensions including physical, psychological, spiritual and sociocultural.
Pain in cancer patients can be categorized into three main types:
- acute pain
- persistent or chronic pain
- breakthrough pain.
There are several ways to categorize the types of pain that occur, for example nociceptive (somatic or visceral) or neuropathic. It is increasingly recognized that acute and chronic pain may represent a continuum rather than being distinct entities (Macintyre et al. [129]) and may combine different pain mechanisms and vary in duration.
