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Ed. Note: The following is a press
release from the Mayo Clinic.
February 10, 2006 --
A Rochester-based study has found
more than 20 percent of people with chronic pain did not seek physician help
for their pain. The study supports the opinion of many physicians that a
large segment of patients has an unmet need for pain care.
Increased media attention and physician education are recommended to
decrease the number of “silent sufferers,” according to the study. Published
in the February issue of Mayo Clinic Proceedings, the study looked at 3,575
people. Of the 2,211 respondents who reported pain of more than three
months’ duration, 22.4 percent (497) stated that they had not informed their
physician about their pain. The survey covered a cross-section of residents
of Olmsted County, Minn., from March through June 2004.
It is unclear whether the reasons for not seeking treatment are limited to
minor impact of pain on the person, or for other reasons such as poor
previous experiences with pain care, perceived lack of effective treatments,
and barriers to health care; lack of medical insurance, for example.
The importance of pain management has gained increasing recognition in the
last decade. In 1995, the American Pain Society declared pain to be the
fifth vital sign, a designation to increase pain awareness among health care
professionals.
The rapid increases in pain medicine prescription hint at a population of
patients with unmet pain needs, according to the study.
Barbara Yawn, M.D., an Olmsted Medical Center physician and an author of the
study, says, “Identification of patients in pain is essential to successful
pain care. Despite significant efforts, successful pain care clearly is not
happening. Physicians have a responsibility to ask their patients about
chronic pain.”
Pain’s health impact on society is significant. Pain sufferers report that
their pain interferes with their general activities and sleep. Approximately
25 percent of “silent sufferers,” those not telling their physician about
their pain, indicated at least moderate interference with both general
activity and sleep. A larger proportion of vocal sufferers (43.2 percent)
showed comparable levels of interference. In general, the location of the
pain had little effect on whether the patients reported their pain. The
study found that chronic pain suffers who do not seek treatment tend to be
younger men whose pain has less impact on their usual activities.
Other researchers included Emmeline Watkins, Ph.D., from the Department of
Epidemiology at AstraZeneca, and Peter Wollan, Ph.D., from Olmsted Medical
Center, and Joseph Melton, M.D., from Mayo Clinic. The study was supported
by a grant from AstraZeneca.
A peer-review journal, Mayo Clinic Proceedings publishes original articles
and reviews dealing with clinical and laboratory medicine, clinical
research, basic science research and clinical epidemiology. Mayo Clinic
Proceedings is published monthly by Mayo Foundation for Medical Education
and Research as part of its commitment to the medical education of
physicians. The journal has been published for more than 75 years and has a
circulation of 130,000 nationally and internationally. Articles are
available online at
www.mayoclinicproceedings.com.
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