Chronic pain and satisfaction with treatment outcomes in patients with mine-blast injuries

Abstract

Chronic pain in patients after mine-explosive wounds occurs, on average, in 83.3% of cases. It has already been found that the neuropathic component of pain and the number of localizations of injured anatomical parts of the body have a direct impact on such a high frequency of chronicity. However, the level of satisfaction with treatment results remains unexplored, which is important because it reflects the quality of life from the distant perspective of treatment.The goal of the work. To investigate the level of satisfaction with the results of treatment in patients with mine-explosive wounds.Material and Methods. Data on the treatment of 280 patients with mine-explosive wounds are presented. The level of satisfaction with the treatment results using the Chaban quality of life scale. The Shapiro-Wilk test was used to check the distribution of quantitative indicators for normality. The law of distribution differed from the normal one, the median value (Me) and interquartile range (QI-QIII) were given to represent quantitative indicators, the comparison of indicators in two groups was carried out according to the Mann-Whitney test. To analyze the dynamics of the indicators, the Friedman test was used for related samples, the posterior comparison was carried out using the Bonferroni correction. For qualitative indicators, the absolute frequency of symptom manifestation and relative frequency (%) are presented, and for the comparison of two groups, the chi-square test was used, taking into account the correction for continuity. When conducting the analysis in all cases, the critical level of significance was taken equal to 0.05.Results. The data of the Chaban quality of life scale indicate that the level of satisfaction with the results of the treatment in the studied patients during the entire observation period was maximum before discharge from the inpatient treatment and ranged from 68 to 73 points – the average level of satisfaction. Later, after 1, 3, 6 and 12 months of observation, this indicator decreased and ranged from 62 to 65 points, which corresponds to the average level of satisfaction with the treatment results.Conclusions. The low level of satisfaction with the results of treatment in patients after mine-explosive wounds is probably a consequence of chronic pain. Patients with mine-explosive wounds have a very high risk of chronic pain – 15% higher than patients with gunshot wounds and 57.5% higher than civilian injured patients. Therefore, more attention should be paid to the problem of pain treatment at the stages of treatment.