A Primary Care Clinician's and Consultant's Guide to Medicating for Pain and Anxiety Associated with Outpatient...

This article offers clinical suggestions for the design of a patient-specific outpatient treatment plan for managing and reducing short-term pain associated with outpatient procedures. These procedures may actually produce pain, or they may be perceived as causing pain and anxiety. The article will also focus on the design of a patient-specific outpatient treatment plan for managing and reducing short-term procedural-induced anxiety, as perceived pain and anxiety or pain and anxiety themselves may be a reason for which patients are noncompliant with their office visits. The treatment plan will focus on pre-procedure, peri-procedure, and post-procedure interventions using nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs and anxiolytics (benzodiazepines, opiate agonists, and sedative hypnotics). The plan also includes adjuvant therapy to decrease the patient's perception of pain, anxiety, fear of procedure, and fear of outcomes in order to facilitate a higher degree of compliance with office procedures. This article also accounts for the patient's physiology, pathophysiology, pathology, and iatrogenic effects from drug treatment plans.