Defending against patients' pain: a qualitative analysis of nurses' responses to children's postoperative pain.
OBJECTIVE
Cognitive approaches to clinical communication attribute deficits in communication to lack of skill. We examined, instead, emotional influences on communication by finding out how nurses construed patients who were in pain, and how these constructions were related to the emotional challenge of patients' pain and to deficits in clinical communication.


METHODS
Data, analyzed qualitatively, included: (i) direct observations of verbal interactions of 13 nurses with 16 children after orthopedic surgery; (ii) standardized open-ended interviews with the nurses, patients and parents.


RESULTS
Nurses tried to prevent children from displaying pain behavior. When pain behavior did occur, they construed pain as unreal, unwarranted or not deserving help. These findings were apparent in observations of, and interviews with, nurses and also in parents' and children's accounts of nurses' behavior.


CONCLUSIONS
We identified behavioral and cognitive strategies whereby clinicians defend themselves emotionally against patients' pain, and which compromise communication with patients in pain.
Department of Clinical Psychology, University of Liverpool, Whelan Building, L69 3GB, Liverpool, UK.
A
A
Byrne
J
J
Morton
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P
Salmon
D000293:Adolescent; D001294:Attitude to Health; D002648:Child; D002652:Child Behavior / Q000523:psychology; D003071:Cognition; D003142:Communication; D006801:Humans; D009723:Nurse-Patient Relations; D010146:Pain / Q000523:psychology*; D010147:Pain Measurement