Clinicians' perspectives of pain in older adults with heart failure.

Overview

Pain is one of the common heart failure (HF)-related symptoms and is often ignored by older adults, who consider it to be a natural process of aging. Little is known about the pain experiences and management of clinicians who are specialized in HF. We conducted semi-structured interviews to obtain qualitative data and sought to describe clinicians' experiences with pain assessment and pain management among older patients with HF using a descriptive approach with 20 interviews. Participants' mean age was 45 ± 10.7 years; 90% identified as White. The majority (85%) of participants had more than five years of clinical experience caring for persons with HF. Some participants expressed that pain management is not their routine even though they assess pain as part of the physical exam. Most participants highlighted the lack of specific guidelines or educational materials for managing pain in older adults with HF. Some participants stated that family caregivers could play an important role in HF patient pain assessment and management. Our findings show that non-pharmacologic treatments play a pivotal role in improving care for individuals with HF and pain symptoms.