Pain research & management : the journal of the Canadian Pain Society = journal de la société canadienne pour le traitement de la douleur
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Randomized Controlled Trial
Exposure to virtual social stimuli modulates subjective pain reports.
Contextual factors, including the gender of researchers, influence experimental and patient pain reports. It is currently not known how social stimuli influence pain percepts, nor which types of sensory modalities of communication, such as auditory, visual or olfactory cues associated with person perception and gender processing, produce these effects. ⋯ Further research on how contextual factors, such as the vocal properties of health care examiners and exposure to background voices, may influence momentary pain perception is necessary for creating more standardized methods for measuring patient pain reports in clinical settings.
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Thousands of children undergo surgery each year, and a shift toward same-day surgeries and decreased lengths of hospital stay results in parents being increasingly responsible for their child's postoperative care. Recent studies have tested interventions designed to improve parent management of their children's postoperative pain at home, but progress in this area has been limited by a lack of synthesis of these findings. ⋯ Results of trials investigating interventions to improve parent management of their children's postoperative pain at home were modest. Future studies should further examine barriers and facilitators to pain management to design more effective interventions.
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Published reports of substantial rates of moderate to severe pediatric inpatient pain tend to overlook lower-intensity pain that may be clinically significant. ⋯ While recent studies suggest reduced pain in pediatric inpatients, the present findings reveal a continued high frequency of undertreated pain. High rates of procedural pain are preventable and should be targeted given the underutilization of pain management strategies.
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Despite >20 years of studies investigating the characteristics of patients seeking or receiving opioid analgesics, research characterizing factors associated with physicians' opioid prescribing practices has been inconclusive, and the role of practitioner specialty in opioid prescribing practices remains largely unknown. ⋯ Significant differences in opioid prescribing practices across prescriber specialties may be reflective of differing norms concerning the appropriateness of opioids for the control of chronic pain. If so, sharing these norms across specialties may improve the care of patients with CNCP.
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Pediatric chronic pain is a common problem with significant economic implications and devastating consequences on quality of life. The present report describes a case involving a 15-year-old girl with severe and debilitating chronic pain. ⋯ Interdisciplinary pain rehabilitation is a useful treatment for patients with chronic pain. With its primary emphasis on functional restoration as opposed to strictly pain reduction, patients can regain a higher quality of life with reduced pain and fewer medications, surgeries and hospitalizations.