Pain Management

Miss Tang Shuk Kwan is a PhD student and student member of Centre for Gerontological Nursing in the School of Nursing, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University. Her research interest is on pain management in working population and older adults, aromatherapy and use of information technology in health promotion. She published a study using aromatherapy to reduce chronic pain in community-dwelling older adults.

Pain affects human in physical and psychological aspects, as well as the work performance and absence from work. With the busy working schedules, the working population might not be able to seek medical advice and or attend clinics in managing their pain. Acute pain refers to pain persisted less than three months and chronic pain exists more than three months. Acutepain can progress to chronic pain if left untreated. Chronic pain brought long-term disabilities and negative emotions. Starting pain management at early stage is essential. An online survey was done to examine the pain situation andpreference of pain education among working population in Hong Kong. It was hoisted on Google Forms from 1st to 31st August 2016. Adults aged 15 or above, performed a formal job or worked for pay or profits during the seven days before the survey were recruited. There were 210 participants in the study (148 females and 62 males). Their mean age was 38.02. 141 participants (67.1%) suffered pain, 40 had acute pain and 101 had chronic pain. In terms of pain intensity, the pain scores for participants with acute pain was 2.46±2.35 while those with chronic pain was 3.01±1.62 on a 0-10 point scale. Chronic pain sufferers experienced longer pain duration (4.48 hours per attack) than acute pain sufferers (1.95 hours per attack).Although both groups took analgesics, chronic pain sufferers did not perceive the analgesics more effective than the acute pain sufferers. Regarding mood and quality of life, chronic pain sufferers experienced a higher level of depressed mood and declined quality of life. Over 80% of all participants chose to continue working even when they were in pain. Concerning pain management education, participants preferred to get pain information on webpage (63.3%). Both groups agreed that they did not receive adequate pain education with insufficient public pain service in Hong Kong. The survey revealed that the working population in Hong Kong are in need of pain service as evidenced by their pain profile. Online pain  anagement education programme offered by healthcare professionals could be a good option to ease the problem..