Disparities Between Clinician and Patient Perception of Breakthrough Pain Control

There are disparities in the level of symptom severity as perceived by patients and health professionals. There is limited information about patients' and clinicians' global assessment of breakthrough pain control, the need to change analgesics, and change in breakthrough pain over time.

To establish whether patients and clinicians independently agree on adequacy of breakthrough pain control, management strategy, and impression of change over time.

One hundred patients with breakthrough cancer pain were assessed and followed up one week later by a palliative medicine specialist. The patient and clinician independently answered the same questions about the adequacy of the patient's breakthrough pain control and breakthrough pain management. The results were compared with items on the Breakthrough Pain Assessment Tool (BAT).

At initial consultation, 35% of patients rated their breakthrough cancer pain as inadequately controlled compared with 72% of clinicians. Breakthrough pain analgesics were changed in 68% of cases. At one-week follow-up consultation, 62% of patients considered their breakthrough cancer pain to be better, and in 57% of cases, the clinicians also categorized the pain this way.

There are significant differences in global impressions of breakthrough pain between patients and pain clinicians that become less disparate as a therapeutic relationship evolves. Therapeutic decisions were based on clinical rather than patient perceptions.