TABLE 2.

Patients’ Ranking of Analgesic Treatment Belief Clusters

Side Effect Cluster	Rank Order	Need It Later Cluster
Pain medications keep you from knowing what is going on in your body.	1	Pain medications keep you from knowing what is going on in your body.
It is easier to deal with the pain than the side effects that come from the pain medications.	2	If you use pain medicine now, it won’t work when you need it later.
It is important to be strong by not talking about pain.	3	Pain medications weaken the immune system.
Many people with cancer get addicted to pain medications.	4	Many people with cancer get addicted to pain medications.
If you use pain medicine now, it won’t work when you need it later.	5	Cancer pain cannot be relieved with medications.
If I talk about pain, people will think I’m a complainer.	6	If doctors have to concentrate on pain, they won’t focus on treating the cancer.
Pain medications weaken the immune system.	7	It is easier to deal with the pain than the side effects that come from the pain medications.
Cancer pain cannot be relieved with medications.	8	It is important to be strong by not talking about pain.
Pain medications make you say or do embarrassing things.	9	If I talk about pain, people will think I’m a complainer.
If doctors have to concentrate on pain, they won’t focus on treating the cancer.	10	Pain medications make you say or do embarrassing things.

Note. Belief clusters are based on Barriers Questionnaire–II domains and were ranked using a maximum differential scaling derived k-means clustering analysis. Because both clusters shared the same top ranked belief, clusters were defined based on the second-highest ranked belief in each group.

Note. From “Patients Trade-Offs Related to Analgesic Use for Cancer Pain: A MaxDiff Analysis Study” by W.E. Rosa et al., 2020, Pain Management Nursing, 21(3), p. 250 (https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pmn.2019.07.013). Copyright 2021 by Elsevier Science and Technology Journals. Adapted with permission.