Practice Question
A nurse is caring for a client who reports abdominal pain. The nurse asks the client to describe what the pain feels like. The nurse is using which of the following components of the PQRST mnemonic?
Answer Choices:
Correct Answer:
Quality
Rationale:
💠 The PQRST mnemonic is used to assess pain: P = Provocation/Precipitating, Q = Quality, R = Region/Radiation, S = Severity, T = Timing.
💠 Quality refers to what the pain feels like in the client’s own words, such as sharp, dull, burning, throbbing, cramping, or stabbing.
💠 When the nurse asks, “What does the pain feel like?” they are directly assessing the quality of the pain.
💠 This information helps differentiate types of pain, such as neuropathic vs. nociceptive, and guides appropriate interventions.
💠 Therefore, asking the client to describe the sensation of the pain is an assessment of Q – Quality in the
Region
💠 Region refers to where the pain is located and whether it radiates to other parts of the body.
💠 Questions that assess region sound like, “Where is the pain?” or “Does the pain move anywhere else?”.
💠 This option would be correct if the nurse were asking the client to point to the site of pain or describe spread to other areas.
💠 Asking what the pain feels like does not focus on location, so it does not correspond to the R (Region/Radiation) component.
💠 Because the question is about the character of pain, not the location, Region is not the best answer.
Severity
💠 Severity focuses on how intense the pain is, usually using a numeric rating scale, such as 0–10.
💠 Typical severity questions include, “On a scale of 0 to 10, how bad is your pain right now?”.
💠 This option would be correct if the nurse were asking the client to rate their pain rather than describe its nature.
💠 The phrase “what the pain feels like” is not asking about intensity or degree of pain, but about sensory descriptors.
💠 Therefore, this answer does not match the nurse’s actual question and is incorrect in this context.
Precipitating cause
💠 Precipitating cause relates to what provokes or triggers the pain, corresponding to the P (Provocation/Precipitating) in PQRST.
💠 Questions like, “What were you doing when the pain started?” or “What makes the pain better or worse?” assess this component.
💠 These questions focus on activities, events, or conditions that bring on or aggravate the pain.
💠 Asking the client to describe what the pain feels like does not address triggers or provoking factors.
💠 Thus, this answer does not reflect the nurse’s actual focus and is not the correct component of the PQRST mnemonic here.
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This question is from Custom NUR 112 Exam #7 FA25 which contains 49 questions.
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Question Details
- Category: LPN Nursing Exam(s)
- Subcategory: LPN ATI Exams
- Domain: 💫PN Custom Exam(s)
- Answer Choices: 4