Pain Severity and Adequacy of Pain Management in Terminally Ill Patients with Cancer: An Experience from North Palestine

INTRODUCTION

A terminal illness is defined as a life-limiting disease with an irreversible decline and an expected survival of months or less.[1] One of the main concerns in these patients is pain, which is a cardinal indicator of their quality of life.[2] Cancer pain is extremely common in all stages of disease in all cancer types.[34] The prevalence of pain at the time of cancer diagnosis and early in the course of the disease is approximately 50% and increases to 75% in advanced stages.[5] Unrelieved pain continues to be an important public health issue worldwide, despite the recommendations for adequate pain control in the World Health Organization (WHO) guidelines.[46] One tool to grade pain severity is the Brief Pain Inventory-Short Form (BPI-SF), a shorter version of the BPI originally developed from the Wisconsin Brief Pain Questionnaire.[7] The pain management index (PMI) is a well-validated tool for assessing the adequacy of pain control using WHO guidelines.[89]

In Palestine, cancer is the third leading cause of death. Recent statistics revealed 8106 new cancer cases (2000–2005) in the West Bank with 3471 deaths.[10] This implies that a high percentage of cancer patients are diagnosed late in terminal stages, which indicates that these patients are beyond curative therapy and need optimal palliative care to live their remaining months with minimal suffering.[11] The Ministry of Health (MOH) has limited palliative care services for oncology patients, and we could find no information on the approach to pain management of terminally ill cancer patients in Palestine. Therefore, we undertook this project to study terminally ill cancer patients to determine the severity of their pain and the adequacy of pain management.

METHODS

Patient selection

Any cancer patient between the ages of 18 and 85 years who was a resident of North West Bank, with an estimated survival of <6 months, was considered for inclusion. We excluded patients with an altered sensorium or a diagnosis of a brain tumor or a psychiatric disorder. Figure 1 depicts an overview of the selection process of the study population.

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Figure 1

Overview of selection process of the study population

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RESULTS

A total of 602 patient charts were reviewed; 21 (3.5%) charts were excluded because they did not contain enough clinical information to stage the disease. Another 21 (3.5%) charts were excluded because those patients had a diagnosis of brain tumor. Of the remaining 560 patients (93%), 325 (54%) patients were not terminally ill. Of the 235 labeled as terminally ill, 159 (68%) patients were excluded as follows: 34 (21%) charts without phone numbers, 44 (28%) charts without a correct or working phone number, 71 (45%) charts with deceased patients, and 8 (6%) charts of patients with an altered sensorium. One was excluded because the patient had a psychiatric disorder. This left a sample of 77 patients for our study.

Table 1 reports the sociodemographic factors and health profile of the patients. The mean age of the participants was 59 years. The percentage of women (44 patients, 57%) was greater than men (33 patients, 43%). Patients more commonly lived in rural areas than urban areas. The primary caregiver of fifty patients (64.9% of the participants) was a relative. Fifteen patients (19.5%) were unaware of their malignancy. More than half of the patients (45 patients, 58.4%) were bedridden >50% of the time. Colorectal cancer (21 patients, 27.3%) and lung cancer (14 patients, 18.2%) were the two most common types of malignancy. Sixty patients (78%) had attended medical clinics and 46 (59.8%) patients had been admitted to the hospital within 1 month of inclusion into our study.

Based on the BPI-SF scores, 59 participants (76.6%) reported moderate-to-severe pain. Based on pain management using the PMI scale, 50 patients (64.9%) received adequate pain management and 27 patients (35.1%) did not. Thirty-five patients (45%) wanted better management of their pain. Thirty-six patients (46.8%) were managed with strong opioids and eight were on weak opioids. Thirty-five patients (45.5%) wanted an increase in pain medication. Thirteen patients (23.2%) admitted that they were not taking the analgesic medications as prescribed. Fear of addiction and concerns about possible adverse effects were cited as common reasons for noncompliance.

We analyzed the relationship between the severity of pain and multiple socioeconomic and clinical factors [Table 2]. None of the socioeconomic factors had a statistically significant association with the severity of pain. The only significant factor was access to health care. Patients who received some form of health care in the last 1 month before inclusion in the study were significantly more likely to have less pain than those with no recent health-care visits (P = 0.024).

We also analyzed the relationship between the adequacy of pain management and multiple socioeconomic and clinical factors [Table 3]. No clinical factors were significantly associated with adequate pain management. The only significant socioeconomic factor was gender; inadequate pain management was significantly more common in women (P = 0.027).

DISCUSSION

In our study, 87.8% of terminally ill cancer patients reported pain, and 62.3% of patients reported severe pain. These percentages are comparable to results in studies from other countries, including the United States (US).[815] None of the socioeconomic factors we tested were significantly associated with pain severity. A study using the BPI scale in American patients of Chinese origin found that age, gender, education level, and insurance status were not significantly associated with pain.[16] Another study conducted on terminally ill patients in the US using the BPI concluded that age and gender were not significantly associated with pain severity, but education and income were.[17] In Palestine, income and education level had no apparent association with pain severity, but this result could reflect the small sample size in our study. Upon testing the association between clinical factors and pain severity, we found that patients who received health care at least once during the past month reported less severe pain than those who did not. In another study consisting of 988 terminally ill patients with different diseases from six randomly selected US sites, the time since the cancer diagnosis was not significantly associated with pain severity, which is consistent with the results in our study, but the level of physical function was a significant factor in the severity of pain. Patients who were bedridden for >50% of the time reported more pain than patients who spent <50% of their time bedridden.[17] The pain management interventions available in Palestine are pharmacological and palliative radiotherapy. In our study population, 46.8% were using strong opioids for their pain management. Palliative radiotherapy was used in 6.5% for bone pain. In the US, palliative radiotherapy is used in 15%–50% of patients.[151819]

In our study, only 64.9% of patients received adequate pain management. In a systematic review of 26 studies from Asia, Europe, and North America, the rate of inadequate pain management varied from 8% to 82%, with a weighted mean value of 43%.[20] Studies in Italy and Europe showed that pain was inadequately managed in 56.0%–82.3% of patients.[2122] The adequacy of pain control using the PMI scale in patients with metastatic solid tumor enrolled in centers specifically devoted to cancer and/or pain management indicated that 25.3% of the patients (range, 9.8%–55.3%) were potentially undertreated.[22] Similar studies have shown that analgesic treatment was inadequate in nearly 42% of patients.[2324] Recent studies in developing countries report serious undertreatment of pain in cancer patients, with a frequent lack of prescriptions for opioids despite obvious indications.[2526] Therefore, inadequate pain management in cancer patients is a global issue, and its magnitude varies considerably across health-care settings in different continents.

In our study, the only significant socioeconomic factor affecting the adequacy of pain management was gender. In the US and Japan, gender is a significant factor in pain management, and females are more likely to be inadequately managed.[82728] Women were at greater risk for underprescription of analgesics, a finding that may be related to the inadequate assessment of pain in them. The age of our patients was not significantly associated with the adequacy of pain management. However, some studies have found that age may be a significant predictor.[829] Lower education level was not a significant predictor in our study, but other studies have found lower education to be a significant factor, more so in developing nations.[3031]

To our knowledge, this is the first study describing the pain experience in cancer patients in Palestine. With the internationally accepted tool to estimate pain, we collected information about pain and its management which provides a foundation for future studies. Limitations of this study include the small sample size that might not be geographically representative of all terminal patients in Palestine. Due to the retrospective nature of our study, many charts lacked the required information to enroll patients, which decreased our sample size.

CONCLUSION

Approximately three-quarters of all the terminally ill cancer patients in Palestine reported moderate-to-severe pain. Despite the WHO recommendations stressing optimal pain relief, more than one-third of these patients, especially women, received inadequate pain management. We recommend the mandatory use of the BPI for every patient with pain to ensure proper assessment of pain severity and adequate pain management to improve the standard of palliative care in north Palestine.