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Chronic pain affects 1 in 4 Mass. residents, poll says

E-mail | Print | Comments () Posted by Elizabeth Cooney April 28, 2010 08:53 AM

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One out of four adults in Massachusetts suffers from serious, persistent pain, a new survey reports, interfering with daily life and work for most of those people at least some of the time. Pain is a problem for almost twice as many poor people or members of minority groups, and these populations tend to suffer more severe pain and have more difficulty obtaining relief.

According to the Massachusetts Pain Initiative, which commissioned the poll of 600 people, 24 percent of respondents said they experienced pain for at least three months over the last two years. Among minorities, the level was 42 percent. The proportion of people reporting pain at 8 on a scale of 1 to 10 was higher for minorities, too: 43 percent compared with 28 percent for other people.

Primary care physicians did not diagnose pain among 28 percent of minority patients, respondents said, compared with 11 percent of other people. The random digit dial telephone poll, conducted in February, has a margin of error of plus or minus 4 percentage points.

"The results are pretty impressive, but not surprising for someone who's been in the field 30-plus years in clinical practice," Carol Curtiss, a leader of the Pain Initiative and a cancer nurse, said in an interview. "We see people who have unrelieved, persistent pain every day. Undertreated pain is a persistent problem in Massachusetts."

Poor people were more likely than better-off people to say they couldn't afford to get treatment, and a third of low-income respondents said they had given up trying to find help. Whether people had health insurance and whether it was private or the state's version of Medicaid, MassHealth, did not matter when it came to a diagnosis of pain. But coverage did count in the emergency room. Half of the people who were uninsured in the last five years said they had gone to the emergency room for care compared with 30 percent of people who had health insurance.

Arthritis and back pain led the list of reasons for pain among all people.

Curtiss said there are many possible reasons why pain is undiagnosed or undertreated. Health care providers have not been well educated about pain management and the few pain specialists in practice have waiting lists of up to six months, she said. Medical personnel may also be concerned about prescribing strong pain medications that have a potential for abuse and greater scrutiny by law enforcement officials.

"I would hope [the survey] would raise awareness among the public as well as health care providers that we have more work to do," she said.

The Pain Initiative is a nonprofit volunteer organization whose members include doctors, nurses, pharmacists, social workers, caregivers, and consumers. It is funded by donations from individuals and health organizations, including the American Cancer Society. The poll was paid for by an unrestricted grant from drug maker Purdue Pharma, which sells the pain drug OxyContin, but the company had no input into the survey, Curtiss said.

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White Coat Notes covers the latest from the health care industry, hospitals, doctors offices, labs, insurers, and the corridors of government. Chelsea Conaboy previously covered health care for The Philadelphia Inquirer. Write her at cconaboy@boston.com. Follow her on Twitter: @cconaboy.

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