Chronic Pain Prevalence and Analgesic Prescribing in a General Medical Population

In order to better understand the prevalence of chronic pain and the frequency of analgesic use in the U.S. veteran general medical population, a review of 300 randomly selected charts was conducted. This review revealed that 50% of patients suffered from at least one type of chronic pain. A review...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inJournal of pain and symptom management Vol. 23; no. 2; pp. 131 - 137
Main Author Clark, J.David
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published New York, NY Elsevier Inc 01.02.2002
Elsevier Science
Subjects
Adult
Aged
Aged, 80 and over
analgesic
Analgesics
Analgesics - therapeutic use
Biological and medical sciences
Chronic Disease
Drug Prescriptions - statistics & numerical data
Family Practice - statistics & numerical data
Female
guidelines
Humans
Male
Medical sciences
Middle Aged
Neuropharmacology
opioid
Pain
Pain - drug therapy
Pain - epidemiology
Pharmacology. Drug treatments
Prevalence
veteran
guidelines
Pain
veteran
analgesic
opioid
Non steroidal antiinflammatory agent
Human
Chronic
Analgesic
Prevalence
Internal medicine
General practitioner
Medical prescription
Opiates
Narcotic analgesic
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Summary:In order to better understand the prevalence of chronic pain and the frequency of analgesic use in the U.S. veteran general medical population, a review of 300 randomly selected charts was conducted. This review revealed that 50% of patients suffered from at least one type of chronic pain. A review of the corresponding pharmacy records indicated that approximately 75% of patients with chronic pain were prescribed at least 1 analgesic, and most received 2 or more. While nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs were the most commonly prescribed class of analgesics, 44% of those receiving an analgesic received opioids. Examination of clinic notes revealed that the prescribing physicians documented physical examination infrequently, and commented on a specific opioid treatment plan or follow-up of that plan in a minority of cases. It appears that chronic pain is common among U.S. veterans, and that analgesics, including opioids, are commonly prescribed. Documentation of the efficacy of opioids for treating chronic pain is often scant.
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ISSN:0885-3924
1873-6513
DOI:10.1016/S0885-3924(01)00396-7