Determinants of perceived need for dental pain medication

To describe the perceived inability to cope (PIC) and impact on quality of life (QOL) in dental pain patients, and investigate their effect on perceived need for pain medication.

Fully structured self-complete questionnaire survey of a sample of patients with current experience of dental pain/discomfort and sensitivity. Subjects were recruited from a dental teaching hospital's emergency and restorative clinics. Questions were asked on pain intensity, PIC, impact on QOL and perceived need for pain medication.

Of 318 subjects approached, 199 (63%) completed usable questionnaires. In expressing PIC, 48.2% of the sample reported that they felt dependent on somebody else doing something about the pain, whereas 69.3% reported feeling helpless in their effort to try and do something about the pain. The prevalence of impact on QOL ranged from 55.8% reporting feeling like isolating oneself from other people to 77.9% for feeling grumpy, irritable, bad-tempered or miserable. Logistic regression analysis identified impact on QOL (OR = 1.17, 95% CI = 1.06-1.30), PIC (OR = 1.10, 95% CI = 1.01-1.21) and pain intensity (OR = 1.26, 95% CI = 1.05-1.50) as independent significant predictors of perceived need for pain medication.

Pain intensity and PIC can enhance the ability of QOL measures in differentiating population groups into those who perceive the need for pain medication and those who do not.