Effect of cognitive behavioral intervention on cancer pain and cancer pain self-efficacy

Abstract

Objective To observe the influence of cognitive behavioral intervention combining cancer pain self-relief with pharmacological therapies on pain and cancer pain self-efficacy. Methods Thirty patients suffering from cancer pain were enrolled into the study and self-contrast experiment was made on each patient.The experiment included two stages, in the first stage, the routine nursing was conducted from the first day to the seventh day; in the second stage, the cognitive behavioral intervention was implemented along with the routine nursing from the eighth day to the twenty-first day. The intervention consisted of cancer pain health education,skill learning, exercises and emotional support. The health education and skill learning were instructed by the researchers face to face three times per week, lasting thirty minutes each time. The changes of patients' pain management before and after health education was evaluated with by Barrier Questionnaire (BQ-L). The pain assessment, analgesic drug analysis and cancer pain self-efficacy were evaluated on 0, 7, 21 day, respectively.Results At the end of the first stage, the dosage of morphine, the number of patients taking drugs on time increased more obviously than the baseline, but there were no statistical significances in the terms of pain selfefficacy, pain intensity, while the time that the pains lasted decreased obviously ( P ＜ 0.05 ); at the end of the second stage, the dosage of morphine, the number of patients taking drugs on time increased more significantly than those at the end of the first stage, pain self-efficacy enhanced remarkably, while pain intensity and the time decreased obviously ( P ＜ 0. 05 ). Conclusions The cognitive behavioral intervention implemented on patients suffering from cancer pain can obviously enhance patients' cancer pain self-efficacy and improve patients' pain management by using the comprehensive cancer pain management such as health education, skill learning,exercises and emotional support. Key words: Cancer pain; Cognitive behavioral intervention; Pain self-efficacy