The Practice of Pain Assessment and Management in a Tertiary Oncology Center.

Abstract

BackgroundPain is one of the common and devastating symptoms that affects millions of cancer patients globally. Despite published guidelines and education on the assessment and management of cancer-related pain, underestimated or undertreated pain continues to be a considerable worldwide public health concern among cancer patients. In this study, we aimed to assess physicians’ adherence to the World Health Organization (WHO) guidelines in the management and assessment of pain in oncology patients based on the available score of pain in the Princess Noorah Oncology Center (PNOC) at the King Abdulaziz Medical City in Jeddah.MethodologyThis cross-sectional, retrospective chart review study studied 451 patients (selected through computerized random sampling) who were admitted to the PNOC during the study period.ResultsThe pain was assessed using the Brief Pain Inventory in almost all patients (n = 450, 99.8%). The pain was categorized as mild in 386 (85.6%) patients, moderate in 46 (10.2%) patients, and severe in 19 (4.2%) patients. Opioid prescriptions were significantly higher among patients with moderate (76.1%) and severe pain (89.5%) compared to those with mild pain (39.1%; p < 0.0001).ConclusionsThe practice of pain documentation for cancer patients was adequate as indicated by reporting the pain scores of 99.8% of inpatients. Patients with moderate and severe pain were more likely to receive opioids and a combination of opioids plus non-opioid analgesics, whereas the prescription of analgesics was predicted by experiencing moderate cancer pain.