Question

A nurse is caring for a client with acute back pain. When should the nurse assess the client's pain?

a) after the client is discharged from the health care facility
b) six hours after administering a prescribed analgesic
c) whenever the vital signs are measured and documented
d) once per day when the pain is a potential problem

Answer 1

The nurse should continuously monitor the client's pain when vital signs are checked, as pain is a subjective symptom crucial for evaluating treatment effectiveness. Assessment tools, like pain scales or conductance measurements, can help in quantifying pain objectively.

Step-by-step explanation:

The nurse should assess the client's pain whenever the vital signs are measured and documented. This is because pain is a subjective symptom, and regular assessment allows the healthcare provider to evaluate the efficacy of pain management strategies. It's important to do so at regular intervals, especially in cases where pain management is actively being adjusted, such as with the administration of analgesics.

To better understand how pain can be assessed, clinicians sometimes use tools like the Wong-Baker Faces pain-rating scale, which allows patients to quantify their pain on a scale from 0-10, or by measuring skin conductance fluctuations that reflect sympathetic nerve activity due to the stressor of pain. These methods aim to provide an objective measure to a subjective experience. Chronic pain, which persists even after tissue repair and is influenced by the immune response, might require more frequent and careful monitoring due to its complex nature involving chemical messengers and macrophages that maintain pain.