Background
Chronic pain is a global public health issue with increasing prevalence. Chronic pain causes sleep disorder, reactive anxiety, and depression, impairs the quality of life; it burdens the individual and society as a whole. Self-treatment is one of the most common activities of self-care and an important part of health behavior. The experience that everyone person has in his illness, as well as its outcome, will depend not only on biological factors but on psychological-behavioral and social factors as well.
Aim
My aim was to examine non-medical factors related to the outcome of the treatment of chronic non-malignant pain.
Hypotheses
The outcome of the treatment of patients with chronic non-malignant pain is associated with the dimensions of pain (intensity, quality, localization, and duration of pain), psychological factors (depression, anxiety) and social factors (social support).
The outcome of the treatment of patients with chronic non-malignant pain is associated with the implementation of self-treatment, the use of family traditions in self-treatment and patients’ belief in the positive effect of self-treatment.
Methods
The first phase was qualitative phenomenological research, semi-structured interviews with 35 participants (15 patients with chronic non-malignant pain at various levels of treatment at the pain clinic, and 20 healthcare professionals). The qualitative research was carried out by the method of recording interviews. The second phase was a cross-sectional study with two groups of patients using a questionnaire with biological, psychological and social characteristics of patients. The first group of participants, with the successful outcome of the treatment of chronic non-malignant pain (NRS 0-3) comprised 156 subjects. The other group of participants, with the poor outcome of the treatment of chronic non-malignant pain (NRS 4-10) comprised 180 subjects.
Results
Three themes were recognized from analyzed interviews in each study group. Data were collected from the patient group revealed the following themes: positive aspects of self-care, need for self-care, and social aspects of self-care. Three themes recognized on the basis of data from the health care provider group were: positive aspects of self-care, need for self-care, and risks of self-care.
The poor outcome of the treatment of chronic non-malignant pain in a multivariate binary logistic regression model is statistically significantly associated with the lower WHOQOL-BREF PHYS domain (OR=0.95 (95% CI: 0.91-0.99; P=0.009). From the psychological factors’ higher depression level (CES-D score) was significantly associated with a poorer treatment outcome OR=1.08 (95% CI: 1.02-1.14; P=0,009). The outcome of the treatment was not directly related to social support measured by the multivariate binary logistic regression model (OR=1.04, 95 %CI: 0.95-1.15, P=0.395), although Living alone (without a partner) was significantly associated with a poorer treatment outcome (OR=2.16 (95% CI: 1.03-4.53; P=0,043). The implementation of self-treatment, use of family traditions in self-treatment and patients’ belief in the positive effect of self-treatment were not significantly associated with poor outcome of the treatment of patients with chronic non-malignant pain, except self-treatment due to inaccessibility of doctors and adequate therapies that increases the chance of poor outcome more than double (OR=2.89).
Conclusion
Self-treatment of chronic pain is understood as an activity of the empowered patient and should be used by health care providers to further include patient in his treatment and motivate him for self-care within the safety of official medicine. Health care providers support the self-treatment of chronic non-malignant pain as an adjunct to clinical treatment. Because of possible risk of self-treatment adverse effects (late diagnosis and true cause of pain establishment) patients should be well informed about the methods and time used.
Several predictors (adjusted to the effect of other variables in the model) showed the significant prediction of belonging to the poor outcome of the treatment group: The typical patient with the poor pain manages outcome is retired, with depressive behavior, and with pain that disturbs general activity and sleeping.
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