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Pain Treatment Evaluation in COVID-19 Patients with Hesitant Fuzzy Linguistic Multicriteria Decision-Making
G Didem Batur Sir1, Ender Sir2
1Department of Industrial Engineering, Gazi University, Ankara 06570, Turkey.
Insights
Managing pain in COVID-19 patients is crucial. This study found paracetamol to be the most preferred treatment, followed by interventional methods, opioids, and NSAIDs, using a novel decision-making approach.
Area of Science:
- Pain Management
- Infectious Diseases
- Decision Science
Background:
- COVID-19 pandemic has led to widespread pain, often undertreated.
- Effective pain management strategies are essential for patient recovery.
- Selecting optimal pain treatments involves complex, conflicting criteria.
Purpose of the Study:
- To guide physicians in selecting and ranking pain treatments for COVID-19 patients.
- To address the challenge of multicriteria decision-making in pain management.
- To introduce a robust methodology for evaluating treatment alternatives.
Main Methods:
- Utilized a multicriteria decision-making framework.
- Employed Hesitant Fuzzy Linguistic Term Sets (HFLTS) for expert input.
- Integrated Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) for criteria weighting.
- Applied Vise Kriterijumska Optimizacija I Kompromisno Resenje (VIKOR) for treatment evaluation.
Main Results:
- Paracetamol identified as the most preferred pain treatment for COVID-19 patients.
- Interventional treatments ranked second, followed by opioids.
- Nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) were ranked fourth.
- The methodology minimized subjective expert bias in treatment selection.
Conclusions:
- The developed AHP-VIKOR approach provides a structured method for pain treatment selection in COVID-19.
- This approach enhances accuracy by mitigating subjective evaluations.
- The methodology is adaptable for pain management in other patient and disease groups.
Abstract:
The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has emerged as a worldwide pandemic since March 2020. Although most patients complain of moderate or severe pain, these symptoms are generally underestimated and appropriate treatment is not applied. This study aims to guide physicians in selecting and ranking various alternatives for the treatment of pain in COVID-19 patients. However, the choice of treatment for pain requires the consideration of many different conflicting criteria. Therefore, we have studied this problem as a multicriteria decision-making problem. Throughout the solution procedure, first, the criteria and subcriteria affecting the preferences are defined. Then, weight values are determined with respect to these criteria, as they have different degrees of importance for the problem. At this stage, hesitant fuzzy linguistic term sets (HFLTSs) are used, and thus, experts can convey their ideas more accurately. In this first phase of the study, an HFLTS integrated Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) method is utilized. Subsequently, possible treatment alternatives are evaluated by using the Vise Kriterijumska Optimizacija I Kompromisno Resenje (VIKOR) method. According to the results obtained by considering expert evaluations, the most preferred treatment is the administration of paracetamol, followed by interventional treatments, opioids, and nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs), respectively. With this study, it is ensured that a more accurate method is followed by eliminating possible mistakes due to the subjective evaluations of experts in the process of determining pain treatment. This method can also be used in different patient and disease groups.
