Congress Abstracts 2006

234

DIFFERENCES IN CANCER PAIN EXPERIENCE BETWEEN ASIAN AND CAUCASIAN CANCER PATIENTS IN THE UNITED STATES. Kyung Suk Kim, PhD, RN, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX; Young Hee Kim, PhD, RN, University of Dongguk, Gyeongju, Korea; and Hyunjeong Shin, PhD, RN, Wonshik Chee, PhD, and Eun-Ok Im, PhD, MPH, RN, CNS, FAAN, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX.

Very few studies have explored ethnic differences in cancer pain experience. Furthermore, the few studies tend to be limited to African American, Hispanic, and Caucasian cancer patients. Consequently, little is known about Asian cancer patients' cancer pain experience.

This study was to explore and compare cancer pain experience between Asian and Caucasian cancer patients in the U. S. Cancer pain experience was operationalized and measured as pain, symptoms accompanying pain, and functional status.

A feminist approach was used in this study.

This was a cross-sectional and comparative study. 166 cancer patients (83 Asian and 83 Caucasian cancer patients) were recruited through the Internet. The questionnaires were composed of the Verbal Descriptor Scale (VDS), the Visual Analogue Scale (VAS), the Wong-Baker Faces Pain Scale (FPS), the McGill Pain Questionnaire-Short Form (MPQ-SF), the Brief Pain Inventory (BPI), the Memorial Symptom Assessment Scale (MSAS), and the Functional Assessment of Cancer Therapy Scale (FACT-G). The data were analyzed using Chi-square tests and Mann-Whitney U-tests.

Among Asian cancer patients, the mean VDS score was 2.00 (SD=1.24); the mean VAS score was 21.80 (SD=30.22); the mean FPS score was 2.45 (SD=1.59); the mean MPQ score was 5.56 (SD=9.54); and the mean BPI score was 26.10 (SD=26.88). Among Caucasian cancer patients, the mean VDS score was 2.83 (SD=1.40); the mean VAS score was 40.24 (SD=33.28); the mean FPS score was 3.29 (SD=1.50); the mean MPQ score was 11.94 (SD=11.07); and the mean BPI score was 38.78 (SD=30.27). The mean symptom number of the Asian group was 9.63 (SD=6.16) and that of Caucasian group was 10.81 (SD=8.04 ). Also, the mean FACT-G score of the Asian group was 78.68 (SD=19.54) and that of Caucasian group was 71.04 (SD=21.62). There were statistically significant differences in the cancer pain scores between Asian and Caucasian cancer patients (p<.01). However, there was no significant difference in symptoms accompanying pain and functional status between the two groups. The findings suggest that nurses need to understand ethnic differences in cancer pain experience.