African Americans' Perceptions of Pain and Pain Management: A Systematic Review.
OBJECTIVE
The purpose of this systematic review is to explore the perceptions of acute, persistent, and disease-specific pain and treatment options held by adult African Americans. Underassessment and undermanagement of pain in African Americans has been well documented; however, the cultural continuum of pain perceptions and their influence on pain assessment and management has not been synthesized.


METHODS
Electronic database searches of the Cumulative Index for Nursing and Allied Health Literature and PubMed, Web-based searches of the pain-specific journals plus a manual search of reference lists identified 41 relevant articles addressing perceptions of pain and/or pain management.


RESULTS
Analysis of the literature revealed six themes: (a) meaning of pain, (b) description of pain, (c) coping with pain, (d) impact of pain, (e) patient-provider relationship, and (f) treatment approaches.


CONCLUSIONS
These findings warrant further research and indicate the need for more precise evaluation of pain in African Americans, highlighting an imperative to incorporate cultural patterns into pain management practice and education.
The University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA, USA staja-booker@uiowa.edu.
Staja Q
SQ
Booker
D001741:Black or African American; D006801:Humans; D024802:Nurse's Role; D059408:Pain Management; D010148:Intractable Pain / Q000208:ethnology / Q000451:nursing / Q000517:prevention & control*; D017060:Patient Satisfaction; D016746:Transcultural Nursing; D014481:United States
African American(s); Black(s); belief(s); culture; pain; perception(s)