• Support Care Cancer · Nov 2012

    Physicians' self-assessment of cancer pain treatment skills--more training required.

    • M Silvoniemi, T Vasankari, T Vahlberg, E Vuorinen, K E Clemens, and E Salminen.
    • Department of Respiratory Medicine, Turku University Hospital, P.O. Box 52, Savitehtaankatu 1, 20521, Turku, Finland. marber@utu.fi
    • Support Care Cancer. 2012 Nov 1;20(11):2747-53.

    PurposeAdequate pain control is essential in cancer treatment. We surveyed Finnish physicians' perception on their skills and training needs on palliative pain management.MethodsA structured questionnaire with multiple choices and open ended questions was used for collecting data in 2006-2008. Of 720 physicians participating, 59 were working in oncology and 661 physicians in internal medicine, geriatrics, and primary health care.ResultsThe principles of the WHO guidelines of cancer pain management were not well known. Forty-six percent of oncologists and 32% of other physicians (P < 0.0001) knew the analgesic ladder consisting of three steps. Forty-seven percent of oncologists and 61% of other physicians considered pain treatment of cancer patients being well managed in Finland. Only 24% of oncologists and 5% of other physicians considered the education in palliative care being currently at a satisfactory level. Oncologists reported a need of training in interaction and communication skills, ethical questions, and palliative home care. The other physicians expressed the strongest need for training in pain management and palliative care.ConclusionsTo have more confidence in treating cancer, pain physicians would benefit in training and education in palliative care. It should be systematically included both in general and specialist training and continuous medical education.

      Pubmed     Full text   Copy Citation     Plaintext  

      Add institutional full text...

    Notes

     
    Knowledge, pearl, summary or comment to share?
    300 characters remaining
    help        
    You can also include formatting, links, images and footnotes in your notes
    • Simple formatting can be added to notes, such as *italics*, _underline_ or **bold**.
    • Superscript can be denoted by <sup>text</sup> and subscript <sub>text</sub>.
    • Numbered or bulleted lists can be created using either numbered lines 1. 2. 3., hyphens - or asterisks *.
    • Links can be included with: [my link to pubmed](http://pubmed.com)
    • Images can be included with: ![alt text](https://bestmedicaljournal.com/study_graph.jpg "Image Title Text")
    • For footnotes use [^1](This is a footnote.) inline.
    • Or use an inline reference [^1] to refer to a longer footnote elseweher in the document [^1]: This is a long footnote..

    hide…