Journal of pain and symptom management
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J Pain Symptom Manage · Oct 2008
Review Meta AnalysisNebulized furosemide for the management of dyspnea: does the evidence support its use?
Dyspnea is a common and distressing symptom associated with multiple chronic illnesses and high levels of burden for individuals, their families and health care systems. The subjective nature dyspnea and a poor understanding of pathophysiological mechanisms challenge the clinician in developing management plans. Nebulized furosemide has been identified as a novel approach to dyspnea management. ⋯ The search criteria yielded 42 articles published in the period 1988 to 2004. Although nebulized furosemide appeared to have a positive influence on dyspnea and physiological measurements, caution must be taken with the results primarily coming from small-scale clinical trials or observation trials. Despite the limitations of the studies reported, given the range of conditions reporting effectiveness of nebulized furosemide, further investigation of this potential novel treatment of dyspnea is warranted.
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J Pain Symptom Manage · Oct 2008
Validation of the Wisconsin Brief Pain Questionnaire in a multilingual South African population.
Assessment of pain intensity and its effect on quality of life is important for proper management of pain, but no validated pain assessment tools that assess pain intensity and the interference pain has on daily life are available in indigenous South African languages. Therefore, the aim of this study was to validate translated versions of the Wisconsin Brief Pain Questionnaire (WBPQ) in South African HIV-positive patients. The WBPQ was translated into three indigenous South African languages, Setswana, isiZulu, and Xitsonga. ⋯ Factor analysis to assess construct validity identified a two-factor structure (pain intensity and pain interference) for the isiZulu (n=132), Xitsonga (n=125), and Setswana (n=66) versions of the WBPQ, whereas a three-factor structure (pain intensity, mood interference, and activity interference) was identified for the English (completed by English second-language speakers, n=129) version of the WBPQ. Cronbach alphas, calculated to assess the reliability of the pain intensity and pain interference scales, were greater than 0.70 for all scales in all four versions of the WBPQ, showing internal consistency within the dimensions. These results provide evidence of validity for an easily administered questionnaire, which assesses pain intensity and pain interference, in three indigenous South African languages, and for English second-language speakers, in a population of South African HIV-positive patients.
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J Pain Symptom Manage · Oct 2008
Clinical TrialIntroduction of a self-report version of the Prescription Drug Use Questionnaire and relationship to medication agreement noncompliance.
The Prescription Drug Use Questionnaire (PDUQ) is one of several published tools developed to help clinicians better identify the presence of opioid abuse or dependence in patients with chronic pain. This paper introduces a patient version of the PDUQ (PDUQp), a 31-item questionnaire derived from the items of the original tool designed for self-administration, and describes evidence for its validity and reliability in a sample of patients with chronic nonmalignant pain and on opioid therapy. Further, this study examines instances of discontinuation from opioid medication treatment related to violation of the medication agreement in this population, and the relationship of these with problematic opioid misuse behaviors, PDUQ and PDUQp scores. ⋯ Of those patients whose opioid treatment was discontinued due to medication agreement violation-related discontinuation (MAVRD) (n=38 or 28% of sample), 40% of these (n=11) were due to specific problematic opioid misuse behaviors. Based upon specificity and sensitivity analyses, a suggested cutoff PDUQp score for predicting MAVRD is provided. This study supports the PDUQp as a useful tool for assessing and predicting problematic opioid medication use in a chronic pain patient sample.
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J Pain Symptom Manage · Oct 2008
Barriers to pain management: caregiver perceptions and pain talk by hospice interdisciplinary teams.
As patients are cared for in their homes by family caregivers, several challenges arise in effective pain and symptom management. Despite hospice's reputation as the gold standard for terminal care, there is still a need to improve pain management practices, including challenges that caregivers face, related to pain assessment, reluctance and fear of administering medication, noncompliance with pain medicine regimens, and hesitance to report pain. The hospice philosophy of care promotes service for both patients and their family by an interdisciplinary team, and total pain management is a goal of this care. ⋯ Although caregiver concerns were identified with the Caregiver Pain Medicine Questionnaire by the research team, there was only one discussion of caregiver pain-related concerns during the hospice team meeting. This despite the finding that 38% of the time involved in a patient discussion is spent on pain-related talk. These findings indicate an opportunity for improvement by hospice teams through focusing on caregiver assessment and intervention.