Inhibition in expressing pain. A qualitative study among Dutch surgical breast cancer patients.

In this qualitative study, 26 white Dutch women were interviewed who had recently undergone breast cancer surgery. The interviews indicated that during their hospital stay many of them had hardly expressed their postoperative pain and had rarely asked for pain medication. Patients' conceptions of postoperative pain and analgesics, their insecurity and lack of assertiveness, and some suboptimal interactions with nurses seem to have been associated with their inhibition in reporting pain.