Adequacy of pain management in cancer patients in Benghazi Medical Center

Abstract

Cancer-related pain (CRP) is a major problem that directly affects the patient life with a potential negative impact on its quality and their caregivers. The evaluation of pain severity and the adequacy of prescribed analgesics are the main step during the treatment of CRP. The main aim of our study was conducted to evaluate the adequacy of cancer-related pain medication in the department of oncology of Benghazi Medical Center (BMC) using pain management index (PMI). This study was conducted at 2018. The data concerning the severity of pain were collected by using Brief  Pain Inventory (BPI). The results showed that the most common patients were female )78.6%) and 28.4% were males, whereas women used medication more adequately than men. Based on PMI scale, (96%) received ---adequate pain management and (3.87%) were undertreated patients. 54% of the patients didn’t need any medications for pain and 35.9% were managed with non-opioid analgesic and 8.84% were on weak opioids. This study suggests that the PMI should be used routinely to evaluate pain severity, and analgesics should be prescribed equitably without discrimination with regard to gender and socioeconomic status of patients.