September 2007 UPDATE: In the primary care setting, the pain numeric rating scale to screen for pain was only moderately accurate in identifying pain in patients, according to the results of a study reported in the August 1 Online First issue and will appear in the October print issue of the Journal of General Internal Medicine. Limitations of the study include the absence of a well-established gold standard for clinically important pain, potential selection bias, and lack of generalizability to all primary care settings. SOURCE: www.medscapetoday.com Coaching Reduces Cancer Patient's Pain; Individualized Program Helped Patients Talk To Their Doctor, Set Pain-Control Goals Cancer patients who received coaching in how to talk to their doctors about pain experienced 20 percent less discomfort in subsequent weeks, according to a UC Davis study published in the April 16 issue of the Journal of Clinical Oncology. The study of 87 patients at the UC Davis Cancer Center and Kaiser Permanente was conducted by Richard Kravitz, a professor of medicine and director of the UC Davis Center for Health Services Research in Primary Care, and Jennifer Wright Oliver, a medical student at UC Davis Medical Center. "We motivated patients to be more effective when they talk with their doctors about pain," said Kravitz. "This approach has been used in people with diabetes and other chronic diseases, but ours was the first time it had been used in cancer. As an intervention, it shows promise in helping cancer patients." An estimated 42 percent of cancer patients do not get sufficient relief from pain, not because their pain can’t be controlled but because of patient-doctor communication barriers. These include patients not knowing their options or fearing being perceived as "bad" patients for talking about pain. Some patients worry that treating pain may keep their physician from treating their cancer aggressively, said Kravitz. Others fear they will become addicted to pain medications. In the study, counselors in the experimental group met for 15 minutes with cancer patients to design an individualized program for pain relief. They asked patients about their beliefs on pain management and had them set goals, such as being able to attend a family gathering or sleep through the night without pain. They would also rehearse what patients would ask for in future visits with their doctors. The control group received a 15-minute educational session on pain control. In subsequent follow-ups, the patients who had received individualized coaching showed a 20 percent overall reduction in average pain. Both groups showed improvements in pain-related knowledge. Thanks to Science Daily "Plain Speaking", 38-page booklet J Pain & Symptom Mgement, 1/02 Oregon Health & Science Univ, 11/02 Euro J Cancer Care, 7/04 Remember we are NOT Doctors and have NO medical training. This site is like an Encylopedia - there are many pages, many links on many topics. Support our work with any size DONATION - see left side of any page - for how to donate. You can help raise awareness of CAM.