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Learning Objective 1: The learner will be able to identify elements of the experience of pain for the adult cancer home hospice patient identified by research.
Learning Objective 2: The learner will be able to identify gaps in the nursing research about the experience of pain for the adult home hospice patient.
Method: A CINAHL search for articles related to cancer pain and hospice and snowballing of references led to abstraction and identification of studies. The Matrix Method developed by Garrard (2011) was used to organize and synthesize search results.
Results: Fourteen studies met inclusion criteria. The majority used qualitative methodology, with a few quantitative and mixed methods studies. Most were focused on the patient’s experience of pain, with few addressing the carer’s or nurse’s experiences. From the patient’s perspective pain has multiple meanings, multiple contexts and treatment is usually not chosen on the basis of physical symptoms and personal preferences alone. The few studies addressing the role of the carer showed that their perceptions influence patients’ attainment of pain relief, and the two studies addressing the role of the hospice nurse identified the nurses’ perception of pain as a symptom needing treatment.
Implications for nursing research: Because of the subjective nature of pain and its treatment, future research into the pain experience of hospice cancer patients should explore the roles and relationships between the patient, carer and nurse. A greater number of robust qualitative studies are needed to understand these complexities and provide direction for quantitative studies about interventions.