What do people want from pain management?

The short answer is often “take my pain away” – and we’d be foolish to ignore the impact of pain intensity on distress and disability. At the same time there’s more than enough research showing that if treatment only emphasises pain intensity (1) it may not be achievable for many, especially if we take into account the small effect sizes on pain intensity from exercise, medications and psychological therapies; and (2) even if pain is reduced, it may not translate into improvements in daily life. The slightly more complex answer lies behind the desire to “take my pain away.” We need to be less superficial in our responses to this simple answer – and take a hard look at what people believe pain represents to them, and what they want to be able to do if pain is reduced. A paper in the current issue of Pain piqued my interest as the authors explored what people with ongoing pain chose as treatments when given the choice. The paper itself is a systematic review of research papers using discrete choice experiments to determine preferences of people with pain when deciding on treatment. Discrete choice experiments assume that treatments can be described by their important features, such as where therapy is administered, how often, the target outcome, adverse effects and so on. The approach also assumes that people make choices based on their personal weighting or the value they place on those features. As the experiment progre...
Source: HealthSkills Weblog - Category: Anesthesiology Authors: Tags: Chronic pain Coping strategies Research Science in practice Occupational therapy pain management Therapeutic approaches Source Type: blogs