Evolution in clinical and demographic characteristics of chronic pain patients affering to a Second Level Pain Unit - Evoluzione delle caratteristiche cliniche e demografiche dei pazienti con dolore cronico afferenti a un Servizio di Terapia del Dolore di Secondo Livello

Abstract

Chronic pain is a common condition related to many diseases. In Italy, as in the rest of Europe, about 20 percent of adults report moderate to severe chronic pain, but very few patients refer to pain specialists and nearly half receive inadequate pain management. This leads to low health-related quality of life and psychological problems with costly issues in the Italian Health Care system. Epidemiologic studies, through an understanding of chronic pain characteristics, report the development, targeting and evaluation of interventions. In this retrospective observational study we analyzed the clinical and demographic data of a population referred for the first time, in 2014, to a specialist, in the second level Pain Unit, Fondazione Salvatore Maugeri, Pavia. The aim was also to evaluate the improvement of pain management in our country after the approval of Law 38/2010 on the institution of the network for Palliative care, comparing the results with a previous similar survey in 2008. We conclude that in Italy patients refer to a Pain clinic very late which causes an increase in the duration of pain and the risk of overlapping factors toward chronicity, even though we noted an improvement compared to 2008.

Keywords

• chronic pain
• epidemiology