[Patients with cancer-related pain and other chronic pain. Priorities and assessment].

In a survey completed at our hospital, 519 doctors and nurses were asked how pain treatment was estimated whether it received priority, and to what degree patients' pain syndromes were assessed. A total of 473 responded to the questionnaire. In the study cancer-related pain and pain from causes other than cancer were assessed in separate population groups. The responders considered that the staff gave higher priority to patients with cancer-related pain, than to patients with other pain. There was a discrepancy between the physicians' and the nurses' answers to the question whether optimal pain relief was obtained. In the cancer pain group, 94% of the physicians and 78% of the nurses assumed that optimal pain relief was obtained fairly often or very often. The corresponding figures in the non-cancer pain group were 53% for the physicians and 35% for the nurses. Only 46% assumed that a planned pain assessment was done as a routine. Physicians and nurses alike experienced great inadequacy in their work with patients in pain. This was expressed more clearly in connection with pain not caused by cancer.