Integrative and complementary practices for pain relieving or controlling in oncology

Abstract

OBJECTIVE: Presenting the main integrative and complementary practices used for pain reliefing or controlling in oncology and identifying nurses' praxis in the use of PICS in cancer patients. METHOD: Integrative literature reviewing in the LILACS, SciELO, BDENF and MEDLINE databases from 2008 to 2018. Bardin content analysis was used. RESULTS: 13 articles were selected for this study. 69.23% of these were published by nurses. As for the year of publication, 2018 was the one with the most publications (30.76%) and the database with the largest number of publications was LILACS (53.83%). The main PICS adopted for pain relief or control were acupuncture, ear acupuncture, herbal medicine, reike, homeopathy and foot reflexology. The practice of nurses in the use of PICS highlights its importance in health education and its appplicability. CONCLUSIONS: Pain is a symptom experienced by most cancer patients, with which there is a wide field of action for nurses through PICS. Therefore, nurses must take ownership of PICS to make them integral and complementary to pharmacological therapies.