A nurse is caring for a patient who recently had spinal surgery. The nurse knows that patients usually experience acute pain following this type of surgery. The patient refuses to get up and walk and is not moving around in the bed. However, the patient is stoic and denies experiencing pain at this time. What most likely explains this patient's behavior?

A) The surgery successfully cured the patient's pain.
B) The patient's culture is possibly influencing the patient's experience of pain.
C) The primary health care provider did not prescribe the correct amount of medication.
D) The nurse is allowing personal beliefs about pain to influence pain management at this time.

A patient's culture or beliefs about pain often influence the patient's expression of pain. In this case, the patient has just had surgery, and the nurse knows that this surgical procedure usually causes patients to experience pain. It is important at this time for the nurse to examine cultural and ethnic factors that are possibly affecting the patient's lack of expression of pain at this time. Even if surgery corrects neurological factors that create chronic pain, surgery causes pain in the acute period. The patient has not taken any pain medication so this is an unrealistic assumption; most pain medications have standard dosages. The nurse is not allowing personal beliefs to influence pain management because the nurse is attempting to determine the reason why the patient is not verbalizing the experience of pain.