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(Ivanhoe Newswire) -- Chronic pain sufferers can see a significant reduction in pain and depression if they are treated with a collaborative care intervention rather than the standard treatment methods, according to a new study.
People who suffer from chronic pain experience considerable physical impairment, distress, depression and increased health care use and costs. Most of these patients seek treatment from their primary care physicians and have limited access to specialty chronic pain services.
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In this study, 401 patients at five primary care clinics were recruited to determine if an approach that involves more patient and doctor education and symptom monitoring and feedback would improve the patients' quality of life.
As part of the study, clinicians underwent a two-session education program that included feedback and recommendations for assessing patients, monitoring their symptoms and receiving suggestions for providing specialty care.
After 12 months, 22 percent of the patients in the intervention group reported a 30 percent reduction in a measure of pain-related disability compared to 14 percent in the treatment as usual group.
Also, the intervention patients showed significantly greater improvements on a measurement of depression, researchers said.
"Although many of the improvements were modest, they may be especially meaningful because patients in our sample were older, had long-standing pain, multiple medical problems and reported high baseline rates of disability," the authors said.
SOURCE: The Journal of the American Medical Association, 2009;301:1242-1252
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