title: The Impact of a National Guideline on the Management of Cancer Pain on the Practice of Pain Assessment and Registration.
abstract: The Dutch clinical practice guideline on the diagnosis and management of pain in patients with cancer was published in 2008 and intensively promoted to healthcare professionals who see patients with cancer. One of the most important recommendations is the systematic registering of the pain and its intensity. To evaluate in which degree this part of the practice guideline is implemented, we analyzed the medical records of patients attending the outpatient oncological clinic in an academic hospital, a large teaching hospital, and 4 smaller peripheral hospitals. None of the participating hospitals assessed pain by a standardized scale. Reference to pain in the medical record happened more frequently in the academic hospital than in the other hospitals. The frequency of recording pain in the medical record in the academic hospital was much higher in this study than the one previously reported, whereas the findings in the other hospitals were comparable. There may be several reasons for the difference in reporting rate of pain in patients with cancer. Our findings indicate that the clinical practice guideline with regard to pain registration is poorly implemented in oncology outpatient clinics. More efforts should be made to generate the awareness for the need of pain registration.
authors.affiliation: Department of Anesthesiology, Pain and Palliative Medicine, Radboud University Nijmegen Medical Centre, Nijmegen, The Netherlands.
authors.forename: Kees
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Besse
authors.affiliation: Scientific Institute for Quality of Healthcare, Radboud University Nijmegen Medical Centre, Nijmegen, The Netherlands.|Department of Primary and Community Care, Radboud University Nijmegen Medical Centre and Kalorama Foundation, Beek-Ubbergen, The Netherlands.
authors.forename: Myrra
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Vernooij-Dassen
authors.affiliation: Department of Anesthesiology, Pain and Palliative Medicine, Radboud University Nijmegen Medical Centre, Nijmegen, The Netherlands.
authors.forename: Kris
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Vissers
authors.affiliation: Department of Anesthesiology, Pain and Palliative Medicine, Radboud University Nijmegen Medical Centre, Nijmegen, The Netherlands.
authors.forename: Yvonne
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Engels
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D005260:Female; D019983:Guideline Adherence / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008495:Medical Oncology / Q000592:standards* / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D008875:Middle Aged; D009369:Neoplasms / Q000150:complications*; D010146:Pain / Q000175:diagnosis; D059408:Pain Management / Q000379:methods* / Q000592:standards*; D010147:Pain Measurement / Q000592:standards
keywords: cancer pain; clinical guidelines; guideline impact; pain measurement; pain registration