Description of pain among patients with advanced cancer attending The Carlos Van Buren and Eduardo Pereira Hospitals between january 2003 and december 2004.

Abstract

The present is a retrospective cohort study of 400 patients from the Pain Relief Program, followed-up at the outpatient clinics of the Carlos van Buren and Eduardo Pereira Hospitals located in Valparaíso between January 2003 and December 2004.  Data were collected from the follow-up charts and the admission and discharge report sheets from patients within the program.

 A database was developed with the available data, and it included all the outcomes which were analyzed through the statistic program  G-Stat.

Purpose:  To know the epidemiological features and the variations in pain intensity among the patients from the program of advanced-cancer-related-pain relief at the Valparaíso-San Antonio Health Service.

Most of the patients is aged between 45 and 64;  the most common cancer was gastric cancer (14.75%); the highest VAP were found at stage I (71,42%) and stage II (66.6%); 33% remained for 0-30 days and 6.75% more than one year.  Sixty-two percent (62%) of the study population that were on analgesic therapy, perceived a decrease of pain, 14.25% noticed an increase in their VAP and 17.75% did not experience any change at their pain intensity.

The epidemiological profile is similar to that of developing countries, and VAP figures show a percentage of patients in whom the pain was not followed-up.