Cultural Perceptions of Nursing Students Regarding Pain and Methods Used for Pain Management.

Background: Understanding cultural perception of pain and determining the methods used for pain management contribute to the assessment of the pain experienced by nursing students.

Aims: The aim of this study is to determine the effect of culture on nursing students' perception of pain and the modern, cultural, and traditional methods they use for pain self-management.

Design: This study is a cross-sectional descriptive study.

Participants/subjects: This study was carried out with 319 nursing students between March 1 and May 1, 2020.

Methods: For data collection, a questionnaire created by the researchers after literature review and the Pain Beliefs Scale were used. Data were evaluated using SPSS Statistics 20.0 program.

Results: The type of pain experienced most often by nursing students is headache (56.7%). The pain they experienced negatively affected daily activities. The mean score of those who used cultural method of psychologic beliefs for reducing pain was statistically significant (p < .05).

Conclusions: Nursing students generally use massage, warm shower, and herbal tea drinking for pain management. The psychologic belief scores of those who applied these traditional methods of pain reduction were high.