Evaluation of Different Types of Pain in Patients with Breast Cancer

Abstract

Background: Cancer, a common disease in the world, is considered the second cause of mortality in developed countries. In the management of symptoms created by breast cancer (BC), pain is the most important. So, this study aimed to evaluate different dimensions of pain in patients using the McGill Pain Questionnaire. In this way, physicians could perform effective treatment for patients. Methods: This case study was done on BC patients aged 30-60 years old in some specialized cancer hospitals in Tehran. The utilized research instrument in this study was the McGill Pain Questionnaire. Data were analyzed by SPSS Software. Results: The BC pain in various dimensions as sensory, emotional, general understanding, and different pain types was studied on 166 women with BC. Our results indicated that pain was more in the sensory dimension in studied patients with an average rate of 80.4, which attributed 1 to 10 rows of the questionnaire. The most chosen words by BC patient in the sensory, emotional, and general understanding dimensions were as follow: the word “Sharp” with 69, “Troublesome” with 47, and “Nauseating” with 87 were the most frequent respectively. Conclusion: According to these results, it is possible to use effective and better treatment to reduce BC patients’ pain.

Keywords

• Pain
• Breast cancer
• McGill Pain Questionnaire
• Pain management