Nurses' Inferences of Suffering

Conclusions (1) The degree of suffering inferred by nurses varies as a function of: patient age; patient social class; diagnosis; whether or not the patient verbalizes distress; type of verbal statement; degree of visible pathology; nurse's self-perceived social class. (2) The nurse's age, level of education, and years of experience are not functionally related to degree of suffering inferred. (3) Similarity of nurse and patient in age and social class are not functionally related to the degree of suffering inferred or to variations in response to verbalizations of distress. (4) Nurses believe that observable patient behaviors are more useful than are individual patient characteristics in determining the degree of suffering patients experience. (5) Nurses tend to define suffering very broadly as involving feelings of physical and psychological discomfort, but do not readily organize their empirical evidence into coherent operational definitions.