Advances in comprehensive pain management

Chronic pain is a significant public health problem and frustrating for everyone affected by it. Psychiatrists should take an active role in the care of patients with chronic pain. They no longer should wait to make a psychiatric diagnosis by exclusion in the patient who has failed to respond to multiple treatments over a period of years. Recent advances in the treatment of chronic pain include the diagnosis and treatment of psychiatric comorbidity, the application of primary psychiatric treatments to chronic pain, and the development of interdisciplinary efforts to provide comprehensive health care to the patient suffering with chronic pain.