ATI LPN
Brunner & Suddarth's Textbook of Medical-Surgical Nursing 14e (Hinkle 2017)
Chapter 12 : Pain Management Questions
Question 1 of 5
An unlicensed nursing assistant (NA) reports to the nurse that a postsurgical patient is complaining of pain that she rates as 8 on a 0-to-10 point scale. The NA tells the nurse that he thinks the patient is exaggerating and does not need pain medication. What is the nurses best response?
Correct Answer: C
Rationale: A broad definition of pain is whatever the person says it is, existing whenever the experiencing person says it does. Action should be taken unless there are demonstrable extenuating circumstances. The other answers are incorrect.
Question 2 of 5
The home health nurse is developing a plan of care for a patient who will be managing his chronic pain at home. Using the nursing process, on which concepts should the nurse focus the patient teaching?
Correct Answer: A
Rationale: The patient will be at home monitoring his own pain management, administering his own medication, and monitoring and reporting side effects. This requires the ability to perform self-care activities in a safe manner. Creating autonomy is important, but need is a poorly defined concept. Health promotion is an important global concept for maintaining health, and exercise is an appropriate activity; however, self-care and safety are the priorities. Dependence is not a concept used to develop a nursing plan of care, and health is too broad a concept to use as a basis for a nursing plan of care.
Question 3 of 5
You are the emergency department (ED) nurse caring for an adult patient who was in a motor vehicle accident. Radiography reveals an ulnar fracture. What type of pain are you addressing when you provide care for this patient?
Correct Answer: B
Rationale: Acute pain is usually of recent onset and commonly associated with a specific injury. Acute pain indicates that damage or injury has occurred. Chronic pain is constant or intermittent pain that persists beyond the expected healing time and that can seldom be attributed to a specific cause or injury. Phantom pain occurs when the body experiences a loss, such as an amputation, and still feels pain in the missing part. Osteopenic pain is not a recognized category of pain.
Question 4 of 5
The wife of a patient you are caring for asks to speak with you. She tells you that she is concerned because her husband is requiring increasingly high doses of analgesia. She states, He was in pain long before he got cancer because he broke his back about 20 years ago. For that problem, though, his pain medicine wasnt just raised and raised. What would be the nurses best response?
Correct Answer: B
Rationale: Much pain associated with cancer is a direct result of tumor involvement. Conveying patient/family concerns to the physician is something a nurse does, but is not the best response by the nurse. Cancer pain can be either acute or chronic, and you do not tell a family member that you are going to keep increasing the dosage of the medication until it doesnt hurt anymore. The family member is obviously concerned.
Question 5 of 5
You are part of the health care team caring for an 87-year-old woman who has been admitted to your rehabilitation facility after falling and fracturing her left hip. The patient appears to be failing to regain functional ability and may have to be readmitted to an acute-care facility. When planning this patients care, what do you know about the negative effects of the stress associated with pain?
Correct Answer: B
Rationale: The widespread endocrine, immunologic, and inflammatory changes that occur with the stress of pain can have significant negative effects. This is particularly harmful in patients whose health is already compromised by age, illness, or injury. Older adults are not immune to the negative effects of stress. Prior debilitation does not have to be present in order for stress to cause potential harm.