Pain Management and Research Centre, Faculty of Medicine and Health, The University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW, Australia.
Northern Clinical School, School of Medicine, The University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW, Australia.
Scand J Pain. 2021 Dec 13;22(2):356-364. doi: 10.1515/sjpain-2021-0173. Print 2022 Apr 26.
Pain is a universal experience which each person encounters differently, guided by the psycho-socio-environmental context in which it occurs. Although more research is underway yet very little is known about pain from Indigenous Australian perspective. Therefore, this study aims to examine, experience of pain and coping, and utility of three measures: Brief Pain Inventory short form, McGill Pain Questionnaire and Numerical rating scale, from Indigenous South Australian people perspective.
Thirteen in-person interviews were conducted which lasted around 90 min and were audio-recorded. The transcripts were coded and analysed thematically with NVivo.
Six key themes were identified; 1: Spiritual conceptualisation of pain; 2: Frequent experience of trauma and injury; 3: Influence of familial history of pain; 4: Acceptance of pain as normal; 5: Outlook on biomedical management of pain; 6: Preference for non-pharmacological management of pain. Also, the three measures did not fully capture pain from an Indigenous Australian perspective which is more deeply rooted in a bio-psycho-socio-spiritual context which is cardinal to conceptualization of health and wellbeing in Indigenous Australian communities.
Findings highlight some commonalities as well as unique differences between Indigenous experiences of pain as compared to non-Indigenous. Factors such as spiritual connection with pain, grief and loss, history of trauma and injury, fear of addiction to pain medication and exposure to pain from early childhood had important implications for how participants viewed pain.
疼痛是每个人都会经历的一种普遍体验，但每个人的体验方式都不同，受到发生疼痛时所处的心理-社会-环境背景的影响。尽管目前正在进行更多的研究，但从澳大利亚原住民的角度来看，人们对疼痛知之甚少。因此，本研究旨在从澳大利亚南部原住民的角度来考察疼痛体验和应对方式，并评估三种测量工具（简明疼痛量表、麦吉尔疼痛问卷和数字评分量表）的效用。
共进行了 13 次面对面访谈，每次访谈持续约 90 分钟，并进行了录音。对转录本进行了编码，并使用 NVivo 进行了主题分析。
确定了 6 个关键主题：1. 疼痛的精神概念化；2. 频繁经历创伤和伤害；3. 家族疼痛史的影响；4. 接受疼痛为正常现象；5. 对生物医学疼痛管理的看法；6. 对疼痛非药物管理的偏好。此外，这三种测量工具并不能完全捕捉到澳大利亚原住民的疼痛体验，原住民的疼痛体验更深层次地植根于生物-心理-社会-精神背景，这对澳大利亚原住民社区的健康和幸福感的概念化至关重要。
研究结果突出了澳大利亚原住民的疼痛体验与非原住民之间的一些共同之处和独特差异。与疼痛、悲伤和失落、创伤和伤害史、对疼痛药物成瘾的恐惧以及从童年早期就开始经历疼痛等因素有关的精神联系，对参与者如何看待疼痛具有重要影响。
