Burn patients' experience of pain management: a qualitative study

Abstract

Pain is a major problem after burns and researchers continue to report that pain from burns remains undertreated. The inadequate pain control results in adverse sequalae physically and psychologically in the burn victims. A better understanding of a burn patient's experience is important in identifying the factors responsible for undertreated pain and establishing effective pain management guidelines or recommendation in the practice of pain relief for burn injuries. This study sought to explore and describe the experience that patients have about pain related to burn-injury during hospitalization. Semi-structured interviews were conducted on eight patients with moderate to severe pain from burn injuries recruited from a Burn Centre in Northwest China. Data was collected by in-depth interviews and qualitative description after full transcription of each interview. Analysis involved the identification of themes and the development of a taxonomy of patients' experience of burn pain and its management. Three themes were indentified: (1) patients' experience of pain control, (2) patients' perception on burn pain management, and (3) patients' expectation of burn pain management. Findings from this study suggested that patients experience uncontrolled pain both physically and psychologically which may serve as an alert for awareness of health professionals to recognize and establish a multidisciplinary pain management team for burn victims, including surgeons, critical care specialists, anesthesiologists, nurses, psychologists, and social workers to accomplish safe and effective strategies for pain control to reach an optimal level of pain management in burn patients. It also provides insights and suggestions for future research directions to address this significant clinical problem.