The role of pharmacists in the management of certain common acute pain states

Abstract

Pain management is a challenge and imperative for all health professionals, including pharmacists. The most of visits to community pharmacies involve acute pain issues, such as tension-type headache (TTH) and dysmenorrhea. Pharmacists are the first-line health care providers faced by those pain sufferers therefore they are in a unique position to recognize pain as a symptom of possibly life threatening underlying health condition, when the patient should be referred to a physician. Based on the probable diagnosis, the pharmacist is able to select the appropriate OTC analgesic, its dosage/pharmaceutical form/route of administration, recommend non-pharmacological measures, advise and educate the patient regarding its pain condition, evaluate treatment efficacy/tolerability and prevent the adverse treatment outcomes (e.g. medication overuse headache development). Pharmacist should recommend OTC nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) or paracetamol as drugs of first choice for the treatment of TTH, and NSAIDs, preferably ibuprofen, for the management of dysmenorrhea. To select the appropriate analgesic, the pharmacist should consider the prior patient experience with analgesics. To prevent medication overuse headache development, simple analgesics should not be used more than 14 days/month and combination analgesics with caffeine/codeine no more than 9 days/month, in patients suffering from TTH. Patient-pharmacist-physician partnership is necessary for effective and safe acute pain treatment.

Keywords

• pharmacist's role
• otc analgesics
• tension-type headache (tth)
• dysmenorrhea
• nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (nsaids)