Invasive pain management procedures: High expectations lead to perceived poor outcomes

Carol Campbell, Zayed University

Document Type

Article

Source of Publication

Journal of Pain Management

Publication Date

12-1-2009

Abstract

Despite the recent shift toward rehabilitative pain management for people who live with and experience chronic pain, minor invasive treatments with local anaesthetic combinations continue to be indicated and performed for both diagnostic and therapeutic purposes. Method: An opportunity sample of 46 patients undergoing invasive procedures for chronic pain management participated. Participants were asked pre-injection to describe the site and duration of pain; provide a current pain rating; state whether they had experienced any previous injection therapy; how much pain relief they expected to experience; and whether they expected any long-term effect from the injection. Four weeks after the injection the participants were contacted by telephone and asked to rate their current pain; state whether the injection met their expectations; how long the effect of the injection had lasted and whether they expected to have the injection repeated. Results: Significant difference between mean number of days of expected pain relief and the actual length of time that the injection was perceived as efficacious (F=4.1502; df (12,33) p<0.001). Significant difference between the expected amount pain relief and actual pain ratings post-injection (F=20.8513 df(1,44) p<0.001). Conclusion: Expectations were unrealistic insofar as they expected significant pain relief post-injection and expected relief to last for considerable time despite the fact that the injections were diagnostic purposes only. Receiving an injection fosters the desire for repeat injections, which may promote patient dependence on health care system. Perceived poor outcomes may be fuelled by pre-injection high expectations and may be counter-productive to current pain management strategies. © 2009 Nova Science Publishers, Inc.

Volume

2

Issue

2

First Page

185

Last Page

191

Disciplines

Medicine and Health Sciences

Keywords

Invasive pain management, Patient expectations, Pre- and post-quasi- experimental design

Scopus ID

77955808747

Indexed in Scopus

yes

Open Access

no

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