Why reducing pain intensity doesn ’ t always mean a better outcome

This article challenges clinicians to rethink pain reduction as the primary outcome measure for persistent pain in the face of increasing opioid use (now reducing but often without subtlety or support) because of the very issues I’ve outlined above. They state the following: Suffering may be related as much to the meaning of pain as to its intensity. Persistent helplessness and hopelessness may be the root causes of suffering for patients with chronic pain yet be reflected in a report of high pain intensity. And conclude their article with this: When pain is chronic, its intensity isn’t a simple measure of something that can be easily fixed. Multiple measures of the complex causes and consequences of pain are needed to elucidate a person’s pain and inform multimodal treatment. But no quantitative summary of these measures will adequately capture the burden or the meaning of chronic pain for a particular patient. For this purpose, nothing is more revealing or therapeutic than a conversation between a patient and a clinician, which allows the patient to be heard and the clinician to appreciate the patient’s experiences and offer empathy, encouragement, mentorship, and hope. Emphasis is entirely mine. And heartfelt. Ballantyne, J. C., & Sullivan, M. D. (2015). Intensity of chronic pain—the wrong metric? New England Journal of Medicine, 373(22), 2098-2099.
Source: HealthSkills Weblog - Category: Anesthesiology Authors: Tags: Chronic pain Coping strategies Pain conditions Professional topics Resilience/Health Science in practice complexity disability pain intensity persistent pain Source Type: blogs