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Primary Care Providers' Views on Chronic Pain Management Among High-Risk Patients in Safety Net Settings
Pain Medicine, 08/09/2012
Clinical Article
Vijayaraghavan M et al. – In order to improve primary care providers (PCPs)' confidence and satisfaction in managing chronic pain, further work should explore the root causes of low confidence and satisfaction and also explore possible remedies.
Methods- The authors recruited PCPs (N = 61) through their HIV–infected patients who were enrolled in a longitudinal study on pain, use, and misuse of opioid analgesics (Pain Study).
- The authors asked PCPs to complete a questionnaire about all of their patients in their practice on the prevalence of chronic pain and illicit substance use, use of opioid analgesics, confidence and satisfaction levels in treating chronic pain, and likelihood of prescribing opioid analgesics in response to clinical vignettes.
- All PCPs cared for at least some patients with chronic pain, and the majority prescribed opioid analgesics for its treatment.
- All PCPs cared for at least some patients who used illicit substances.
- PCPs reported low confidence and satisfaction levels in treating chronic pain.
- The majority (73.8%) of PCPs were highly likely to prescribe opioid analgesics to a patient without a history of substance use who had chronic pain.
- The majority (88.5%) were somewhat to highly likely to prescribe opioid analgesics to a patient with a prior history of substance use but not active use.
- Most (67.2%) were somewhat to highly likely to prescribe opioids to a patient with active substance use.
