Chronic pain is common and management hampered by lack of resources in primary and secondary care. Nurse- or pharmacist-led clinics have been shown to lead to improvements in care for patients with chronic pain. This study showed that a combined nurse/pharmacist-led clinic for managing chronic pain in primary care can lead to improvements in management of pain, reduction in use of secondary car...

BACKGROUND The Oswestry Disability Index (ODI) is widely used for patients with back pain. However, few studies have examined its psychometric properties using modern measurement theory. The purpose of this study was to investigate the psychometric properties of the ODI in patients with back pain using Rasch analysis. METHODS A total of 408 patients with back pain participated in this cross-s...

Chronic shoulder pain is a common and disabling symptom in patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA). It has been previously shown that a suprascapular nerve block (SSNB) using the standard mixture of bupivacaine and adrenaline (Ba) plus methylprednisolone (P), which is routinely used in pain clinics, results in a considerable improvement in pain relief and range of movement compared with convent...

UNLABELLED Racial and ethnic minorities, older people, and women are differentially affected by chronic pain. This study aimed to identify the experiences of adult African Americans and whites with chronic pain while identifying patient clusters on the basis of clinical characteristics as well as race, age, and gender influences within and between clusters. Three clusters of patients with chron...

OBJECTIVE Fear of pain and pain catastrophizing are prominent risk factors for pediatric chronic pain-related maladjustment. Although resilience has largely been ignored in the pediatric pain literature, prior research suggests that optimism might benefit youth and can be learned. We applied an adult chronic pain risk-resilience model to examine the interplay of risk factors and optimism on fun...

We have extended the traditional use of opioid contracts to involve the primary care physician (PCP). The PCP was asked to collaborate with the pain specialist's decision to use opioids by cosigning an opioid contract. Explicit in the agreement was the understanding that the primary care physician would assume prescribing the refills for these medications once the opioid regimen had become stab...

OBJECTIVE To examine functions of the exercise ECG in the light of the recent National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence guidelines recommending that it should not be used for the diagnosis or exclusion of stable angina. DESIGN Qualitative ethnographic study based on interviews and observations of clinical practice. SETTING 3 rapid access chest pain clinics in England. PARTICIP...

signals via a pathway involving c-Fos, which indicates the inhibition of excitatory C fibers and long-term depression. It has also been suggested to alter gene expression in neurons by means of neuromodulation. Another popular theory is the stimulation of the serotonergic and noradrenergic system and induction of descending pathways. In our clinical practice, we introduce the RF cannula between...

BACKGROUND Recently, an 8-item short-form version of the Chronic Pain Acceptance Questionnaire (CPAQ-8) was developed predominantly in an internet sample. Further investigation of the factor structure in a multidisciplinary pain clinic sample is required. Investigation of the concurrent validity of the CPAQ-8 after accounting for the effects of variables commonly measured in the pain clinic set...

BACKGROUND To maximize the benefit of therapies, patients must understand their condition, recall treatment suggestions and comply with treatments. The Pain Explanation and Treatment Diagram (PETD) is a one-page worksheet that identifies risk factors (health-related habits, sleep, exercise, ergonomics and psychosocial factors) involved in chronic pain. Clinician and patient complete the PETD to...