Physician concern over medication intake: a simple measure of medication use

Medication use is commonly measured in clinical pain control studies. Equivalence to a standard medication (e.g., morphine), effective dosage, and percent changes from before to after treatment have been used to provide quantitative medication intake measures which are amenable to statistical analysis. Problems with these methods arise when specific medications are not found in an extant table or when combinations of medications interact in their effectiveness or side effects. In the present study, a Q-sort technique, whereby physicians rated concern over medication intake, provided a simple, rapid measure of medication intake which is sensitive to treatment effects and is amenable to statistical analysis.