Managing the problem pain patient: compliance or social control?
This paper explores the usefulness of a social control perspective for the analysis of the everyday medical management of problem pain patients. The popular, social-psychologically based, patient-compliance model is founded on certain assumptions which limit applicability to pain patient-practitioner interaction. A social control model is proposed to account for the moral and social construction of the problem pain patient. Data are presented from studies of pain management seminars and the patient screening process in a comprehensive pain treatment center to illustrate how this moral and social construction is accomplished.
D006801:Humans; D010146:Pain / Q000523:psychology; D059408:Pain Management; D010349:Patient Compliance; D012927:Social Control, Informal