• Virginie Piano, Michel Lanteri-Minet, Monique Steegers, Kees Besse, Anne Donnet, Stans Verhagen, Chris Van Weel, Yvonne Engels, and Kris Vissers.
• Centre Hospitalo-Universitaire de Marseille, and Department of Anesthesiology, Pain and Palliative Medicine, Radboud University Nijmegen Medical Centre, Nijmegen, The Netherlands.
• Pain Physician. 2013 Nov 1;16(6):E779-88.

BackgroundIn more and more countries, a specific pain education curriculum is provided to instruct pain physicians. However, there is little literature on pain education and in particularly how to evaluate their knowledge. One of the modules interesting to assess is the use of clinical practice guidelines (CPGs) by pain physicians.ObjectivesThe aim was to investigate if a case vignette is useful to evaluate pain physicians' knowledge about recommendations contained in CPGs.SettingAn email survey was conducted with the support of the Societe Francaise d'Etude et de Traitement de la Douleur to all pain specialists (primary and secondary care) in France.MethodsThe survey consisted of a case vignette about a patient with pain suffering from an intractable pancreatic cancer with multiple choice questions about diagnosis and treatment of pain. Percentages of participants who treated the patient as suggested in the CPGs were calculated.ResultsA total of 214 of those invited to participate (921) answered the questionnaire (24%). More than 85% of the respondents declared to know and use CPGs. Half of the participants diagnosed and treated neuropathic pain components in the case vignette according to the recommendations in the CPGs.LimitationsThis exercise needed to be explained: pain physicians should be trained to this kind of questionnaire. It explains the low response rate and the progressive diminution of responders during the questionnaire.ConclusionsCase vignette is an interesting instrument for pain education because it is cheap, easy to use, and can be repeated. However, training before using this instrument is needed for pain physicians, in particular during their pain education.

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