A Survey on Clinical Characteristics of Patients Visiting Pain Clinics

Jo, Dae Hyun; Hong, Ji Hee; Kim, Myoung Hee

Abstract

BACKGROUND
Recently, the number of patients visiting pain clinics has been increasing with the augmented concerns of those patients about the management of their pain. We conducted this study in order to elucidate the characteristics of patients visiting pain clinics and to determine a method to further raise their awareness about pain treatment. METHODS: We reviewed 1, 424 new patients who visited our pain clinic from March 2003 to December 2004. We analyzed these patients according to their age and sex, treatment method before visiting the pain clinic, coexisting disease, chief complaint and pain location, resident district, route of visiting pain clinic, and degree of impairment due to pain by use of questionnaire. RESULTS: In age distribution, the largest proportion (23.5%) was in their 50's. Most patients (64.0%) had received treatment in an oriental medicine clinic before visiting the pain clinic. The most common coexisting disease was hypertension (20.3%) and low back pain was the most common chief complaint (68.3%). Most of the patients lived in Gyeonggido (87%) and most visited our pain clinic on the recommendation of other patients who had visited our pain clinic before. CONCLUSIONS: We need to guide pain patients to undergo proper treatment much earlier using patient education or a referral system. Moreover, we should be more careful in patients with diabetes mellitus, and should have greater concern in the treatment of low back pain.