ABSTRACT
The epidemiological study of pain among patients attending the out-patient clinics at Siriraj Hospital was carried out from April to May 1987. The studied patients were randomly selected for interviewing as questionnaire prepared. The total of out 2889 patients was involved in this study. These were surgical, medical, orthopedical, ophthalmological and oto-rhinolaryngological and gynaecological patients which encountered in 809 (28.0%), 635 (22.5%), 514 (17.8%), 435 (15.1%) and 351 (12.1%) patients respectively. The mean age of these patients in year was 39.80+17.27, range 12-84. The ratio of female to male patients was 2.2:1. The locations of pain presented were abdominal, head and facial, neck and back, thigh and multiples encounted in 312 (19.6%), 304 (19.1%), 256 (16.1%), 238 (15.0%) and 113 (7.1%) respectively. Only 44 patients (2.8%) presented with pain of indefinite location. The acute pain was encountered in 813 patients (51.2%) while the chronic one was encountered in 776 patients (48.8%). Only 10.1% of these patients received no treatment prior to be seen while the rest had treatments elsewhere. Of the patients treated elsewhere 57.4% had previonsly treatment at other hospitals, 19.4% had self treatment and only 10.3% had treatment at the private clinics. Only 2.8% of the these patients were treated by either unskilled or unqualified personels.