Pain Prevalence and Management in a General Hospital Through Repeated Cross-Sectional Surveys in 2011 and 2021

Abstract

Background

There is great scope for improving the quality of pain management. Although pain prevalence has been investigated in several countries, few studies have comparatively assessed changes in pain prevalence and management over a span of multiple years.

Aim

This work was aimed at determining the pain prevalence and evaluating the condition of pain management in a Chinese general hospital in 2021 and comparing them with corresponding data from 10 years ago.

Methods

Repeated single-center cross-sectional studies were initiated on June 14th, 2011, and September 2nd, 2021, in the same tertiary grade A Chinese general hospital. The same structured questionnaire was used to collect inpatient data on pain intensity and classification and pain management outcomes. We performed statistical analyses to compare categorical variables to assess changes over time.

Results

The sample sizes for the investigations in 2011 and 2021 were 2323 and 4454, respectively. In 2021, 24.34% of patients experienced pain; this percentage was significantly lower than that in 2011. Meanwhile, the prevalence of moderate and severe pain decreased from 14.73% in 2011 to 4.98% in 2021. The other six indicators of pain management outcomes also improved significantly. The percentages of patients using painkillers, opioid analgesics, and multiple analgesics increased from 44.61 to 51.38%, 24.01% to 44.61%, and 6.82% to 14.11%, respectively. Furthermore, the percentages of patients who received pain information and who actively reported pain increased from 27.56% to 96.5% and from 85.54% to 98.71%, respectively. The percentage of patients qualified to accurately use the Numerical Rating Scale increased from 10.5% to 79.98%.

Conclusion

The quality and outcomes of pain management improved greatly after the establishment and implementation of the pain management system. Nonetheless, pain of different intensities is common after major surgeries, and it is recommended that hospitals popularize and implement perioperative multimodal analgesia strategies to reduce the incidence of postoperative pain.

Keywords:

• pain
• pain prevalence
• pain management
• pain assessment
• pain treatment

Ethical Approval and Consent to Participate

The studies were approved by the ethics committee of the First Affiliated Hospital, Zhejiang University School of Medicine (approval no. IIT20220154A). All investigations were conducted in accordance with the code of ethics outlined in the Declaration of Helsinki.

Acknowledgments

We thank all the pain care quality controllers for their effort.

Author Contributions

All authors contributed to data analysis, drafting or revising the article, have agreed on the journal to which the article will be submitted, gave final approval of the version to be published, and agree to be accountable for all aspects of the work.

Disclosure

The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

Additional information

Funding

This work is supported by the Medical Science and Technology Project of Zhejiang Province (No. 2023564806), Nursing Discipline Construction Scientific Research Project of The First Affiliated Hospital, Zhejiang University School of Medicine (No. 2022ZYHL002).