Improving the quality of pain treatment by a tailored pain education programme for cancer patients in chronic pain.

Educational interventions, aiming to increase patients' knowledge and attitude regarding pain, can affect pain treatment. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effects of a Pain Education Programme (PEP), on adequacy of pain treatment, and to describe characteristics predicting change in adequacy. The PEP consists of a multi-method approach in which patients are educated about the basic principles regarding pain, instructed how to report pain in a pain diary, how to communicate about pain, and how to contact healthcare providers. The effects of the PEP were evaluated taking into consideration the lack of well-established outcome measures to evaluate adequacy of pain treatment, the lack of long-term follow-up, and the influence of missing data.A prospective, randomized study was utilized in which 313 chronic cancer patients were followed-up until 8 weeks postdischarge. Adequacy of pain treatment was evaluated by means of the Amsterdam Pain Management Index (APMI), consisting of an integrated score of patients' Present Pain Intensity, Average Pain Intensity, and Worst Pain Intensity, corrected for patients' Tolerable Present Pain, with the analgesics used by the patient. At pretest, 60% of the patients in the hospital were treated inadequately for their pain. Postdischarge, the control group patients were significantly more inadequately treated at 2 weeks after discharge (56% vs 41%), at 4 weeks after discharge (62% vs 42%) and at 8 weeks after discharge (57% vs 51%) than the intervention group patients. While the level of inadequacy in the control groups remained relatively stable at all assessment points, a slight increase in the percentage of patients being treated inadequately was found in the intervention group patients over time. A beneficial effect of the PEP was found for patients both with and without district nursing. Variables predicting an improvement in adequacy of pain treatment consisted of the PEP, the APMI score at baseline, patients' level of physical functioning, patients' level of social functioning, the extent of adherence to pain medication, patients' pain knowledge, and the amount of analgesics used. These findings suggest that quality of pain treatment in cancer patients with chronic pain can be enhanced by educating patients about pain and improving active participation in their own pain treatment. The benefit from the PEP, however, decreases slightly over time, pointing at a need for ongoing education.

Empirical comparison of commonly used measures to evaluate pain treatment in cancer patients with chronic pain.

PURPOSE: There is limited consensus about the most appropriate measures to evaluate the adequacy of pain treatment in cancer patients. There are no known studies describing commonly used measures to simultaneously evaluate the adequacy of cancer pain treatment. The purpose of this study was to compare measures, which are frequently reported in the literature, to assess the adequacy of pain treatment in cancer patients with chronic pain. This study was part of a randomized controlled trial. PATIENTS AND METHODS: In total, 313 cancer patients with a pain duration of at least 1 month were evaluated. After a baseline measure in the hospital, patients were followed up at 2, 4, and 8 weeks after discharge at home. Adequacy of cancer pain treatment was evaluated by means of four different types of outcome measures. The four types included three pain intensity markers based on patients' pain intensity, a pain relief scale, a patient satisfaction scale, and three pain management indexes that related patients' pain medication with pain intensity. RESULTS: The proportion of inadequately treated pain patients varied extremely. Depending on the outcome measure used, the percentage of inadequately treated patients ranged from 16% to 91%. The choice of measure, rather than pain treatment itself, determined the proportion of inadequacy. CONCLUSION: There is an urgent need for consensus about how to evaluate the effectiveness of pain treatment. Studies that evaluate adequacy of pain treatment should be interpreted with caution. Further research is necessary to elucidate the validity and reliability of outcome measures simultaneously.

A pain education program for chronic cancer pain patients: follow-up results from a randomized controlled trial.

The effectiveness of a Pain Education Program in cancer patients with chronic pain offered by nurses was investigated in a randomized controlled clinical trial. A multi-method approach was used in which verbal instruction, written material, an audio cassette tape, and the use of a pain diary were combined to inform and instruct patients about pain and pain management. The Pain Education Program was tailored to the needs of the individual patient and consisted of three elements: (1) educating patients about the basic principles regarding pain and pain management; (2) instructing patients how to report their pain in a pain diary; and (3) instructing patients how to communicate about pain and how to contact health care providers. Following pretesting in 313 patients, patients who needed district nursing and who did not need district nursing at home were randomly assigned to a control or intervention group. Intervention group patients received the Pain Education Program in the hospital, and 3 and 7 days postdischarge by telephone; this was done by nurses who were specially trained as pain counselors. Follow-up assessments were at 2, 4 and 8 weeks postdischarge. Results of the pretest showed that many patients lacked knowledge about pain and pain management. The majority of pain topics had to be discussed. The Pain Education Program proved to be feasible: 75.0% of the patients had read the entire pain brochure, 55.7% had listened to the audio cassette, and 85.6% of pain scores were completed in the pain diary. Results showed a significant increase in pain knowledge in patients who received the Pain Education Program and a significant decrease in pain intensity. However, pain relief was mainly found in the intervention group patients without district nursing. It can be concluded that the tailored Pain Education Program is effective for cancer patients in chronic pain. The use of the Pain Education Program by nurses should be seriously considered on oncology units.

Nurses' smoking worldwide. A review of 73 surveys on nurses' tobacco consumption in 21 countries in the period 1959-1988.

Nurses are the largest professional group in health care. Nurses' smoking is not only important to their personal health, but also to the public's health. Analysis of smoking prevalences found among nurses in 21 countries in the period 1959-1988 shows that considerable numbers of both female and male nurses are smokers. More often than not there are found as many smokers among nurses as among the general population, sometimes even more. Only in Canada and Finland female nurses smoked clearly less than the population at large. Nurses' smoking prevalences decreased slowly in industrialized countries. An exemplary role is recognized by many nurses; more so by non-smoking nurses than by their smoking colleagues. Factors influencing nurses' smoking are professional socialization, duality of roles, workstress, discrepant expectancies about nurses' role and lack of social support. Theoretical explanations for nurses smoking by means of the theories of strain, of selection, of social control and of professional subculture are discussed. Future research should be internationally coordinated and aimed at comparability within a cultural and organizational context.