Pain Quality by Location in Outpatients with Cancer.
Judith M Schlaeger, Li-Chueh Weng, Hsiu-Li Huang and 5 others
PMID 31160180WHAT IT FOUND
Lung and prostate cancer outpatients marked different pain sites: chest, back, and head for lung; abdomen, buttocks, and legs for prostate.
Mapping pain words to sites may help nurses recognise possible neuropathic pain.
Key findings
01Lung cancer patients most often marked chest, back, and head; prostate cancer patients most often marked abdomen, buttocks, and legs.
02Nauseating was the only descriptor selected by a statistically significantly larger proportion of lung cancer patients than prostate cancer patients after false discovery rate adjustment.
03Pain quality descriptors varied by body site, with sensory words such as burning, tingling, sharp, sore, tender, throbbing, stabbing, and pressing assigned to specific locations.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for RNs
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What it does not show
The analysis used a convenience sample of 264 outpatients from existing data collected from 1989 to 1998, so it may not apply to current cancer care settings or patients not studied. It was a descriptive questionnaire analysis, not a trial of pain treatment, so it cannot show that mapping pain words to sites improves assessment, treatment choice, or patient outcomes. The sample was 80% men and 85% White, which limits how well it represents women or other ethnic groups. Some patients were excluded because they had no pain or missing pain location information, and the analysis focused on seven commonly marked body sites and a 20% threshold for descriptors. Multiple comparisons were adjusted, but the study did not test whether neuropathic or nociceptive classifications led to better pain control.
Declared interests
The authors declared no conflicts of interest. The article is tagged as supported by NIH extramural and non-U.S. government research funding.
The easy way to misread this
Do not conclude that mapping pain quality words to body sites proves a patient has neuropathic pain or that targeted treatments will work. This was a descriptive analysis of old questionnaire data, not a treatment trial. Only nauseating differed significantly by cancer type after adjustment, and the paper did not test whether these descriptor patterns changed outcomes.