title: An experience with 156 patients attending a newly organized pain and palliative care clinic in a tertiary hospital.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Pain and palliative care clinic (PCC).
  
  
  OBJECTIVE
  The primary object of this study was to enumerate the demographic characteristics of patients attending a newly organized PCC. The secondary purpose was to detect symptom prevalence and frequency of different cancers in these patients.
  
  
  METHODS
  Prospective cross-sectional descriptive study.
  
  
  METHODS
  A prospective cross-sectional descriptive study was done on patients referred to the PCC of a tertiary hospital in North India. Comprehensive details of all patients were recorded systematically on the first visit on a proforma specially prepared for the newly established palliative care clinic.
  
  
  METHODS
  The descriptive statistics of palliative care data was presented in terms of frequencies and percentages (%) for categorical variables.
  
  
  RESULTS
  The data collected at our PCC showed that out of 156 patients, 87 were males and 69 were females. Patients of all ages varying from 6 to 85 years were seen. Most patients (82.1%) lived with their families, and 28 (17.1%) patients lived alone and had no financial support. The most common primary diagnoses were head and neck cancers (38.5%), carcinoma cervix (15.4%), breast cancer (10.3%), colorectal cancer (6.4%), and lung cancer (4.5%). Frequency of seven most common symptoms was pain (100%), insomnia (64.1%), loss of appetite (34.6%), nausea (32.7%), vomiting (32.1%), constipation (31.4%) and sore mouth (28.8%).
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Population-based studies determine the actual magnitude of sufferers and suffering and show that palliative care services should be included as an essential component in a tertiary care hospital. The objective should be to reach out to the patient and help in improving the patent's quality of life in every way possible.
authors.affiliation: Department of Radiotherapy, Safdarjung Hospital and VMMC, New Delhi, India.
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Lal
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Raheja
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Kale
authors.forename: N
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Das
authors.forename: A R
authors.initials: AR
authors.lastname: Gogia
authors.forename: K T
authors.initials: KT
authors.lastname: Bhowmik
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D002648:Child; D005260:Female; D006258:Head and Neck Neoplasms / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000628:therapy*; D006801:Humans; D007194:India; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D018710:Pain Clinics; D010166:Palliative Care; D011446:Prospective Studies; D011787:Quality of Health Care; D012959:Socioeconomic Factors; D062606:Tertiary Care Centers; D055815:Young Adult