Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2022 Jan;27(1):103-118.
doi: 10.1177/1359105320944987. Epub 2020 Aug 1.

Communicating and understanding pain: Limitations of pain scales for patients with sickle cell disorder and other painful conditions

Peter J Collins  1   2 , Alicia Renedo  3 , Cicely A Marston  3
Affiliations

Communicating and understanding pain: Limitations of pain scales for patients with sickle cell disorder and other painful conditions

Peter J Collins et al. J Health Psychol. 2022 Jan.

Abstract

Pain communication in healthcare is challenging. We examine use of pain scales to communicate pain severity via a case study of people with sickle cell disorder (SCD). We show how pain communication involves complex social interactions between patients, healthcare professionals and significant others - none of which are included in pain ratings. Failure to account for relational aspects of pain may cause problems for any patient. For SCD, mutual distrust shapes pain communication, further complicating clinical assessments. Moreover, SCD pain is particularly severe, making ratings hard to interpret compared with ratings from non-SCD patients, potentially exacerbating problems in managing pain relief.

Keywords: context; pain; pain communication; pain management; pain scales; qualitative methods; sickle cell disease; sickle cell disorder; social interaction; trust.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

Declaration of conflicting interests: The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

References

    1. Adegbola MA, Barnes DM, Opollo JG, et al.. (2012) Voices of adults living with sickle cell disease pain. Journal of National Black Nurses’ Association: JNBNA 23(2): 16–23. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Aisiku IP, Smith WR, McClish DK, et al.. (2009) Comparisons of high versus low emergency department utilizers in sickle cell disease. Annals of Emergency Medicine 53(5): 587–593. - PubMed
    1. American Pain Society (1999) Principles of Analgesic Use in the Treatment of Acute Pain and Cancer Pain (4th edn). Glenview, IL: American Pain Society.
    1. Atkin K, Ahmad WIU. (2001) Living a ‘normal’ life: Young people coping with thalassaemia major or sickle cell disorder. Social Science & Medicine 53(5): 615–626. - PubMed
    1. Attride-Stirling J. (2001) Thematic networks: An analytic tool for qualitative research. Qualitative Research 1(3): 385–405.

Publication types