Fear of pain in patients with advanced cancer or in patients with chronic noncancer pain.

Objectives: pain is one of the most prevalent symptoms in patients with advanced cancer and, according to anecdotal reports, perhaps the most feared. Surprisingly, fear of pain has been the subject of little research within cancer care. The literature on chronic noncancer pain, however, suggests that fear of pain contributes to limitations in function in populations with diverse chronic illness.

Suffering with advanced cancer.

Purpose: The alleviation of suffering is a central goal of palliative care, but little research has addressed the construct of suffering as a global experience of the whole person. We inquired into the sense of suffering among patients with advanced cancer to investigate its causes and correlates.

Patients And Methods: Semistructured interviews were administered to 381 patients.