Acute and Chronic Pain: Best Management Approaches in Resource Limited Setting, Cameroon

Pain is a common event in many scenarios involving healthcare, from birth to death, in the hospital or outside of it. The overall purpose of this work was to critically review articles on types of pain and options employed in managing pain. Some electronic sources like google scholar, Ovid MEDLINE, PsychINFO, Embase were used to source for information. The articles were reviewed according to the various themes of the topic. From the different sources pain is categorized as acute or chronic with physical, psychological and social characteristics. Effective management of pain utilizes both pharmacologic and non-pharmacologic therapy. Pharmacological therapy employs non-opioids medications. Prolonged or unnecessary use of opioids causes some harmful side effects to the patient. Non-pharmacologic therapy plays a significant role and should be included in the multidisciplinary treatment plan. Nurses are members of the healthcare team who spend most of their time with patients as such they must work in collaboration with other healthcare professionals to facilitate patient’s recovery from pain. Healthcare professionals should also make use of internationally recognized guidelines during practice.