Reasons for refusing medication included fear of toxicity, fear of addiction, not wanting to disturb the nurse, and the belief that pain is normal and healthy. The beliefs that patients have about pain can influence the degree of pain they experience. These analyses controlled for both the severity of the burn and time elapsed since admission. Beliefs in the expected duration of pain can influence the pain report even when the actual pain stimulus and duration of pain are constant. Normal healthy subjects who believed in greater pain duration reported increased pain intensity when exposed to experimental cold pressor pain.
Anxiety is another patient-related variable that can influence pain.
In fact, many procedures that are not inherently harmful can produce great pain and anxiety, depending on the patient's interpretation of the event. Today, however, patients are learning to control their own pain following surgery. Giving control to patients should lead to better pain management and decreased anxiety, but this evidence is mixed. This suggests that the relationship between pain, control, and anxiety is complex. Thus, simply giving patients control over their analgesics does not ensure adequate pain relief.