[Towards a phenomenonology of persistant pain].
OBJECTIVE
It is widely admitted that the management of chronic pain must be global and integrate its subjective dimension. However until now, no method has been made available to health care workers to approach this complex domain, in which the discriminating and emotional components of the pain combine and provide the sufferer with an indefinable feeling that is difficult to communicate to others. We present the preliminary results of a phenomenonological approach of the conscious experience of patients suffering from neuropathic pain.


METHODS
Phenomenonology, a philosophical method, was designed to analyze the phenomena from the awareness that the patient has and hence of the description he or she provides of them. We therefore proposed that these patients express their pain in the context of recorded semi-directive interviews on their daily experience of pain and on the manner in which they coped with it.


RESULTS
Analysis of the contents of the texts collected revealed the impact of pain on the patient's relationship to him/herself, to friends and family and to the rest of the world, and on their capacity to assess their quality of life.


CONCLUSIONS
The abundance and precision of the answers obtained suggest that a method inspired by phenomenonology could, once adapted to the clinical constraints, render the experience of pain accessible to the health care workers. Such a method would also help to improve the concept of chronic pain. Moreover, because it re-establishes the suffering patient in his or her context as a human being, this method would be of great ethical value.
Ribau
Claire
C
DEA d'éthique médicale et biologique, Fédération de neurologie, Hôpital Purpan, 31059 Toulouse Cedex, France.
Marc-Vergnes
Jean-Pierre
JP
D000203:Activities of Daily Living / Q000523:psychology; D000223:Adaptation, Psychological; D000328:Adult; D001364:Awareness; D004992:Ethics, Medical; D005195:Family Relations; D005260:Female; D005602:France; D006801:Humans; D007398:Interpersonal Relations; D007406:Interview, Psychological; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009437:Neuralgia / Q000523:psychology*; D010147:Pain Measurement; D010148:Intractable Pain / Q000523:psychology*; D010686:Philosophy, Medical; D010817:Physician-Patient Relations; D011788:Quality of Life / Q000523:psychology; D012803:Sick Role