[Man and his pain: anthropological and social dimension].

Pain is quite a subjective and personal experience. Pain is never similar, even for the same subject at different moments of his life. Anatomy and physiology cannot give a complete explanation of this. Every person is a particular subject with his own personal history. His pain perception, tolerance and expression depend upon the meaning, he gives to the pain. This depends upon the person actual reality and all what he became through his ancestral history, his ethnic group, and also through his personal history, his believes, his past experience and his social surrounding. This will also vary according to age, sex, social level and also according to circumstances in which pain occurs. For a better pain management, it is important that every health care provider be aware of these different anthropologic and social factors that affect patient relation with pain, this, without being mislead by stereotyping.