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- Title
Universal precautions in pain medicine: a rational approach to the treatment of chronic pain.
- Authors
Gourlay, Douglas L; Heit, Howard A; Almahrezi, Abdulaziz
- Abstract
The heightened interest in pain management is making the need for appropriate boundary setting within the clinician-patient relationship even more apparent. Unfortunately, it is impossible to determine before hand, with any degree of certainty, who will become problematic users of prescription medications. With this in mind, a parallel is drawn between the chronic pain management paradigm and our past experience with problems identifying the "at-risk" individuals from an infectious disease model. By recognizing the need to carefully assess all patients, in a biopsychosocial model, including past and present aberrant behaviors when they exist, and by applying careful and reasonably set limits in the clinician-patient relationship, it is possible to triage chronic pain patients into three categories according to risk. This article describes a "universal precautions" approach to the assessment and ongoing management of the chronic pain patient and offers a triage scheme for estimating risk that includes recommendations for management and referral. By taking a thorough and respectful approach to patient assessment and management within chronic pain treatment, stigma can be reduced, patient care improved, and overall risk contained.
- Publication
Pain medicine (Malden, Mass.), 2005, Vol 6, Issue 2, p107
- ISSN
1526-2375
- Publication type
Journal Article
- DOI
10.1111/j.1526-4637.2005.05031.x