The Relationships between Self-Care and Pain Perception: Experience in Iranian Patients with Cancer

Abstract

Background: The present study aimed to investigate the relationship between self-care and pain control in patients with cancer. Methods: In this cross-sectional study (October to December, 2015) 380 cancer patients were admitted to one of the hospitals affiliated to Mazandaran University of Medical Sciences (Sari, Iran) entered to the study using simple random sampling. Data was collected by a demographic questionnaire, self-care scale and McGill pain questionnaire. The statistical package for social sciences, version 20.0 (SPSS Inc., Chicago, IL, USA) was utilized for data analysis by descriptive and infernal statistic tests (Spearman’s correlation and Generalized Linear models). Results: Males in the study (48.39 ± 13 ± 39; CI95: 46.41 - 50.38) were older than females (45.33 ± 18.44; CI95: 42.79 - 47.87). Based on the results of the processing of the Generalized Linear Models, there was not a significant relationship between pain perception and self-care in cancer patients (P > 0.05). But there was a significant relationship between pain perception and its two subsets of physical self-care (B = -1.102, P < 0.001) and emotional self -care (B = 0.823, P < 0.001). Conclusions: Considering the adverse effects of chronic pain treatment process and secondary problems, more comprehensive studies must be done about the effects of self-care behaviors on the perception of pain so that effective steps can be taken to intervene and promote the health of these patients.