[Quality improvement in conservative pain management (QUIKS) : A module of the QUIPS project for benchmarking of pain treatment in patients with nonoperative care].

BACKGROUND

National and international surveys have shown that the quality of pain therapy in hospitals shows deficits, especially in the nonoperative disciplines.

OBJECTIVE

The objective was to develop and clinically validate a module for the outcome and process parameters for pain management in patients in the context of a conservative/nonoperative hospital treatment analogous to the QUIPS questionnaire (quality improvement in postoperative pain therapy), which focuses on postoperative pain management.

MATERIAL AND METHODS

In a 4-step procedure the QUIPS outcome questionnaire and the process assessment sheet of the QUIPS module were adapted to the conditions of conservative/nonoperative treatment. Patients from internal medicine, neurology and dermatology took part in the systematic testing and the clinical validation.

RESULTS

A total of 973 patients were enrolled (inclusion rate 74%, n = 403 internal medicine, n = 401 neurology, n = 169 dermatology). The majority completed the questionnaire independently while 33% of the patients needed support, which was given in the form of an interview. Apart from a few deficits, most questions about pain intensity and function were fully recorded. The evaluation of the outcome was difficult as regardless of the pain therapy, a relevant proportion of the patients reported no pain. Due to the lack of conclusive diagnoses at the time of the assessment, organ-related disease groups were developed using word diagnoses instead of the OPS coding used in QUIPS.

CONCLUSION

In addition to the perioperative modules of QUIPS, QUIKS (quality improvement in conservative pain management), an instrument for quality assurance of pain treatment in patients in nonoperative disciplines, is now available.