[Healthcare services research on pain in Germany. A survey]

Within the last ten years healthcare services research has developed into an independent interdisciplinary field of research. A selective search of the literature was conducted in the database Google Scholar and the database on healthcare services research in Germany (http://versorgungsforschung-deutschland.de) for healthcare services research projects on pain in Germany. Healthcare services research projects were conducted by pharmaceutical companies, patient self-help organizations, scientific societies, statutory health insurance companies and university departments on acute and chronic pain. Valid data on the epidemiology, grading and treatment of chronic pain are available. There was an overuse of opioids and invasive procedures in patients with chronic low back pain, fibromyalgia syndrome and somatoform pain disorders. Databases for patients with chronic pain are currently constructed by pain societies. The fragmentation of data from health insurance companies, old age pension insurances, clinical institutions and population surveys and inconsistencies in diagnosing or encoding chronic pain impede the carrying out of significant longitudinal studies. Based on the data available, the needs of care for patients with chronic pain and the necessary care services cannot be derived. Important topics of future healthcare services research on pain are longitudinal studies on the cost efficacy and risks of inpatient and outpatient pain therapy based on routine data of health insurance companies, old age pension insurances and pain registries, longitudinal studies on "patient careers" (i.e. sequences of healthcare) and the identification of potential starting points for control of healthcare.