Virginia LeBaron on Discussing Pain with Cancer Patients

Virginia LeBaron, APRN, PhD, FAAN, post-doctoral research fellow, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, discusses some takeaway points from a study that looked at how cancer outpatients and health care providers talk about pain.

LeBaron says it is important that oncology nurses keep pain on their radar screen when talking to any cancer patient. The study showed that cancer patients in all stages are talking about pain.

The study also showed that most providers ask closed-ended questions about pain when talking with their patient, LeBaron says. Nurses should ask open-ended questions to provide their patients a better opportunity to talk about their pain experience.