Culture influences the way one perceives situations. It is directly related to how one expresses pain. How one is raised, and the social values inculcated during upbringing determines how one expresses pain and its nature, intensity, and duration. Although pain is considered private, how an individual responds is determined by cultural, physiological, and social factors. The ethnic diversity in pain perception calls for clinicians to use different ways to meet the different cultures’ needs.
Socio-cultural status is a determiner of how people perceive pain. This can be explained using the notion of acculturation. Acculturation is defined as how a new immigrant copes with the new country’s norms. A person’s pain experience depends on social and cultural elements (Torres-Cueco, 2018). Mostly, the immigrants are of a lower socio-cultural status compared to the natives. However, people from lower socio-cultural ranks tend to experience more pain than those from higher socio-cultural ranks. This is usually due to variations in social support.
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People from different cultures and social groups have unique ways of expressing pain. Patients have varied beliefs and behave differently when in pain (Shoiab et al., 2018). Some patients groan other than saying it verbally, and they believe that is enough communication. This is brought about by differences in the language of pain. Specific ways of giving a signal to others, either verbally or non-verbally, vary from one group to another. The culture determines the behavior. The behavior depends on whether emotions are valued or devalued by the culture. Some cultures value verbal communication of pain while others encourage playing down the pain. Some cultures view pain as normal and, therefore, do not seek medical attention or display it unless asked. This affects their treatment.
Recognizing and respecting the patient’s beliefs and values, linguistic and behavioral needs is useful in improving the patient’s outcome. Firstly, it increases the patient’s trust towards the doctor. This way, the patient will disclose health information needed for better treatment results. Second, it will reduce the chances of medical errors; thus, the patient will be given the right treatment. Lastly, culturally competent pain management reduces the rate of patients missing medical visits. Sometimes, when medical officers go against a patient’s beliefs, they may avoid the health facility altogether.
Conclusively, culture influences pain perception and expression. Communication of pain is determined by culture; hence health professionals should understand the interplay to manage pain in patients effectively.
References
Shoiab, M., Sherlock, R., Ali, R.B., Suleman, A and Arshad, M (2016). A Language specific and culturally adapted pain management program. Psychotherapy Journal , 102(1), e197-e198.
Torres-Cueco, R. (2018). Pain culture health-care system in the postmodern society: Pain and Rehabilitation . Journal of Physiotherapy Pain Association , 44, 5-9.
