1st Edition

Giving Comfort and Inflicting Pain

By Irena Madjar Copyright 1998
    254 Pages
    by Routledge

    254 Pages
    by Routledge

    This phenomenological study describes the lived experience of pain inflicted in the context of medically prescribed treatment, and it explores the meanings of such pain for patients who endured it and for nurses whose actions contributed to its generation. Thus, it presents a thematic description of the phenomenon of clinically inflicted pain. The dangers for both patients and nurses when clinically inflicted pain is ignored, overlooked, or treated with detachment are presented. The study also points the way toward nursing practice that is guided by thoughtfulness and sensitivity to patients1 lived experience and an awareness of the freedom and responsibility inherent in nursing actions, including those involved in inflicting and relieving pain. Questions are raised about nurses1 knowledge, attitudes, and actions in relation to clinically inflicted pain. The study highlights the need for nursing education and practice to consider the contribution of a phenomenological perspective to the understanding of the human experience of pain and the nursing role in its generation, prevention, and relief.

    Chapter 1 The Problem of Pain; Chapter 2 The Case for Phenomenology in the Study of Human Embodiment and Pain; Chapter 3 Placing the Experience of Inflicted Pain in Context: The Impact of Illness and Injury on the Embodied Self; Chapter 4 The Phenomenon of Clinically Inflicted Pain: Essential Themes; Chapter 5 The Lifeworld Of Inflicted Pain: Patients’ Perceptions Of Others, Pain, And Self; Chapter 6 Inflicting And Relieving Pain: The Lifeworld Of Nursing Practice; Chapter 7 Clinically Inflicted Pain And Nursing Practice;

    Biography

    Madjar, Irena

    "This book is to be recommended as a useful and important source of reference on pain and its management to all health care professionals.. The findings and discussion within this book provide an important and valuable contribution to the literature on pain from the lived experience of patients. " - Journal of Advanced Nursing