An assessment of basic pain knowledge and impact of pain education on Indian Anaesthesiologists - a pre and post questionnaire study

Under-treatment of pain is a global phenomenon and the basic knowledge of pain amongst health care providers continues to be deficient. The aim of this study was to determine the basic prevalent knowledge of pain among Indian anaesthesiologists and the impact of a pain educational programme on their existing knowledge.

A nine lectures pain continuing medical education (CME) program was conducted for 114 young anaesthesiologists. All delegates were given 21-item questionnaire in a pre and post-test design. The 69 paired responses were compared for individual questions using McNemar test and the overall improvement in knowledge was analysed using paired t-test.

The pre-test score for correct answers was 61.9%. The post-test score was 69.8% and this improvement was found to be statistically significant (P < 0.001). A significant improvement in perception was detected that 'opioids usage was less likely to cause addiction' (correct responses increased from 4.2 to 77.4%, P = 0.001).

The questionnaire study found that the current basic knowledge about pain amongst young anaesthesiologists is deficient. The physician's major concerns were opioid addiction and respiratory depression with opioid usage. The results of pre and post-test questionnaire survey have shown that pain education can help in improving knowledge of pain management.