Teaching Effective Pain Management of Acute Thoracic Postoperative Pain in Chronic Pain Patients

This thesis will address the growing demand for the development of best practice initiatives when nurses care for patients experiencing acute postoperative pain while already coping with long-term chronic pain. The growing use of preoperative opioids has contributed to the incidence of escalated and unrelieved pain following a Thoracic surgical procedure. This occurrence continues to increase as the preoperative usage of opioids for medical and non-medical reasons is rising. The focus of addressing the challenges for providing adequate and individualized analgesia will be reviewed. Specific emphasis and analysis will be provided regarding current pain theories and recent nursing research that presently guide practice. Determining adequate preoperative analgesic requirements and approaches to maintain a goal of a tolerated pain level throughout recovery will be envisioned. Focus on thoracic surgical populations with a review of current research, literature and existing practice models will be analyzed. This project is guided by core concepts from Margaret Newman\u27s theory of Health as Expanding Consciousness (HEC)