Pain practice : the official journal of World Institute of Pain
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To investigate whether physician-patient agreement of potential patient problem areas impacts subsequent patient enrollment in an interdisciplinary pain management program. ⋯ The level of physician-patient agreement regarding the patients' current difficulties did not appear to influence patients' decisions to participate in interdisciplinary pain management. Extraneous, nonclinical factors may have had a greater impact on participation in interdisciplinary pain management than physician-patient agreement. Future research should focus on identifying these factors and their impact. Also, studying the impact of physician-patient agreement beyond enrollment status (eg, on successful program completion) may be helpful in potentially enhancing patient outcomes.
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Pain management after surgery is crucial to decrease perioperative morbidity and mortality. Acute pain services (APS) are multidisciplinary teams that represent a modern strategy to address pain inside hospitals. The APS defines and applies pain treatment protocols specific for each surgery. To evaluate the performance of the APS at our institute, we performed a large retrospective cohort study focusing on complications of epidural analgesia and IV opiates. ⋯ In our large case series, APS was confirmed safe and effective in treating postoperative pain, using both epidural analgesia and IV PCA with morphine.
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Between 2009 and 2011 a series of 26 articles on evidence-based medicine for interventional pain medicine according to clinical diagnoses were published. The high number of publications since the last literature search justified an update. ⋯ This article summarizes the evolution of the quality of evidence and the strength of recommendations for the interventional pain treatment options for 28 clinical pain diagnoses.
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Computerized methods to analyze pain drawings (PDs) have been developed and may aid to measure the pain area more precisely. ⋯ Our results show that intra- and inter-rater reliabilities were excellent when an examiner reproduced the paper PDs into digitalized PDs. This process gives clinicians and researchers the opportunity to analyze pain extent more precisely using a computerized method.
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Patients with chronic pain treated with opioids are at an increased risk for opioid misuse or opioid use disorder (OUD). Recent years have seen a stark increase in abuse, misuse, and diversion of prescription opioid medications. The aim of this study was to investigate trends in changing rates of opioid use disorder among patients with chronic pain. ⋯ These findings suggest that the prevalence of OUD increased substantially from 2011 to 2015. Disparities of OUD with increasing opioid use among vulnerable populations including women, those with Medicare insurance, tobacco use disorder, and low annual income should be explored further.