Congress Abstracts 2006

230

ENDURING METASTATIC CANCER PAIN. Mary Arathuzik, DNSC, APRN, BC, Emmanuel College, Boston, MA.

Oncology nurses often care for cancer patients who are experiencing pain particularly patients with metastatic disease. Understanding key factors encountered by metastatic cancer patients who are enduring pain should provide nurses with valuable insights into how cancer patients deal with pain.

The purpose of this qualitative study was to explore how metastatic breast cancer patients endure pain. This research focuses on the priority area of symptom control.

Grounded theory method was used to study how metastatic breast cancer patients endure pain (Strauss & Corbin, 1990). Enduring cancer pain was investigated by unfolding key factors encountered with repeated metastatic pain experiences.

A purposive sample of 19 women between the ages of 20 and 80 years with a confirmed diagnosis of metastatic breast cancer who stated that they were in pain was drawn from the inpatient and outpatient populations of three community hospitals. The sample was stratified according to initial, recurrent and chronic metastatic pain experiences due to bone or nerve metastases. Concurrent and retrospective in-depth interviews provided documentation of how metastatic breast cancer patients endure cancer pain. Patients described 34 different episodes of metastatic cancer pain that they had experienced. Data collection and analysis occurred simultaneously during a two and one-half year period of time. Interview data were content analyzed according to the constant comparative method of abstracting the qualitative data into codes and categories. Three steps in coding were used: open, axial and selective coding procedures (Strauss & Corbin, 1990).

The analysis yielded a model that identifies how metastatic breast cancer patients endure the suffering of cancer pain. Enduring the suffering of metastatic cancer pain involves key factors including perceptions, feelings, and physical effects/limitations of the pain. Faith, hope and supportive relationships are resources that sustain metastatic breast cancer patients enduring cancer pain. Nurses and other health professionals should understand how metastatic cancer patients endure pain so that they can assist these patients to deal with their suffering.