Symptomatic treatment or palliative treatment refers to therapies that relieve symptoms, without correcting the basic or underlying cause of the disease. Symptomatic treatment of pain normally aims at reducing the pain but not to eliminate the disease causing the pain (Eliopoulos, 2013). The society normally reinforces or promotes symptomatic treatment of pain rather than correction of the underlying problem through several ways. One is self-management, whereby patients do not seek professional help but rather attempt to manage pain on their own or with help of family and friends in order to prevent flare-ups (Eliopoulos, 2013). They can do so by buying over-the-counter analgesics or pain relievers such as acetaminophen and nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs). Secondly, pain beliefs among different societies also reinforce symptomatic treatment in that some societies encourage self-management of pain by understating pain threats and believing that they can control it without necessarily going to a hospital to establish the actual cause of the pain.
Various studies have shown that there are positive outcomes associated with prayer in healthcare; it helps patients to cope with disease and pain. Spirituality and prayer are known to affect the soul and minds of the patient by reducing the levels of anxiety, depression and also reducing the levels of concern since spiritual patients believe that in prayer there is a way out for their problems (Simão, Caldeira & de Carvalho, 2016). Prayer is known to be a complementary therapy that helps patients deal or cope with physical and emotional pains. Therefore, prayer based on the above findings of various studies, prayer can offer relief to someone suffering physically and emotionally.
Primarily, guidelines for reimbursements apply to all care providers despite the nature of care provided. Therefore, the same guidelines will apply for medical procedures for pain relief. However, reimbursement for comforting strategies that nurses could provide may not be provided because comfort is a relative term that to some is luxurious and is not necessarily needed to reduce pain. Such comforting strategies include nurses spending time with patients, listening to them attentively and touching or holding the hand of the patient (Eliopoulos, 2013). Notably, there is no cost incurred for comforting strategies of pain relief while for medical procedures there is always expenditure incurred for example prescription of pain relieving drugs. From the reimbursement guidelines, reimbursement can only be made based on the necessity of the medical procedure as well as the standard of care.
References
Eliopoulos, C. (2013). Gerontological nursing. Lippincott Williams & Wilkins.
Simão, T. P., Caldeira, S., & de Carvalho, E. C. (2016). The effect of prayer on patients’ health: systematic literature review. Religions, 7(1), 11.
