A district general hospital pain management programme. First year experiences and outcomes

A pain management programme was set up in a large District General Hospital to improve the management of the many patients with chronic non-malignant pain who do not respond to interventional medicine. Outcome measures studied were depression, anxiety, disability, pain locus of control, illness behaviour and patient satisfaction with the programme. The first five of these measures showed statistically significant improvements whilst patient satisfaction with the programme was high at both assessments. In addition, there were marked decreases in the consumption of analgesics and sedative drugs. We conclude that a multidisciplinary pain management programme is a cost effective and constructive way of treating patients whose pain does not respond to interventional management.