| The effects of pain have been well-documented among people with cancer. Barriers to controlling cancer pain exist at the patient, professional and systems levels. The attitudes and beliefs of social workers towards the treatment of cancer pain may function as barriers to empathy and sensitivity in pain assessment.; This study examined the relationship between social worker-related perceived barriers to cancer pain management and making a functional pain assessment and using non-pharmacological strategies. The study was exploratory, descriptive, non-experimental and multi method. Approximately 700 members of the Association of Oncology Social Work (AOSW) were surveyed during March, 2003, and 185 questionnaires (26%) were returned.; The Barriers Questionnaire-II (BQ-II) (Gunnarsdottir et al. 2002), was used to measure of the independent variable, perceived barriers towards the management of cancer pain. The Pain Assessment Questionnaire (PAQ) (Dalton et al. 1998) was adapted to evaluate the dependent variables, functional assessment of pain and use of non-pharmacological strategies. Personal beliefs about barriers to the assessment of cancer pain and use of non-pharmacological strategies in practice were assessed.; Although the major hypotheses were not statistically supported, relationships among several social worker-related demographic variables significantly influenced the findings. Total years' experience as a social worker with oncology patients was negatively related to the total scores of the BQ-II (r = −.21, p = .006) and to the physiological subscale scores (r = −.225, p = .003) and to the harmful effects subscale scores (r = −.19, p = .01). The longer social workers were in practice, the lower were their attitudinal barriers towards the physiological and harmful effects of pain medications. Positive relationships were found between familiarity with non-pharmacological strategies and the use of the techniques of imagery ( r = −.447, p = .000), relaxation ( r = −.384, p = .000), distraction (r = −.246, p = .021) and the total score on the non-pharmacological use scale (r = −.381, p = .024).; Personal beliefs about barriers included the lack of training in pain assessment, limited time and privacy to do interventions and little recognition of social work skills and role. Implications for the scope of social work practice management of cancer pain are discussed. |
