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Congruence between health professionals’ and patients’ pain ratings: a review of the literature
Author(s) -
Solomon Patricia
Publication year - 2001
Publication title -
scandinavian journal of caring sciences
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.678
H-Index - 66
eISSN - 1471-6712
pISSN - 0283-9318
DOI - 10.1046/j.1471-6712.2001.00027.x
Subject(s) - health professionals , psychology , congruence (geometry) , complement (music) , clinical psychology , health care , medicine , social psychology , biochemistry , chemistry , complementation , economics , gene , phenotype , economic growth
Congruence between health professionals’ and patients’ pain ratings: a review of the literature The literature suggests that health professionals have a tendency to underestimate pain when performing clinical assessments. In addition, it appears that the more clinical experience one has, the greater will be the underestimation of pain. Pain assessment is difficult because of the complex interaction between environment, patient and practitioner variables. Although there is a need for further research in this area, there are clinical implications worthy of consideration. Health professionals need to use a variety of valid and reliable measures, use measures of pain behaviour and disability to complement self‐report measures and examine how their own biases and values may influence pain judgements.