Chronic pain service: A retrospective descriptive analysis of in-hospital pain consultations

Abstract Aims: The objective of this study was to describe the set-up of the chronic pain consultation service (CPS) in a tertiary care university hospital and to analyse a full year of its practice. Methods: The CPS was administered by the Helsinki University Hospital Pain Clinic and was provided by a senior anaesthesiologist specialised in pain management. During the first year, 266 patients were seen and the medical records of 212 patients were analysed retrospectively. Information was collected about the requesting units, and types, duration, anatomical regions, intensity, mechanisms and treatments of pains of the patients, and the work-load expended for the consultations. Results: The reasons for consultations were cancer (37% of patients), chronic non-cancer (27%) and acute pain (20%). The most common pain mechanism was nociceptive. The number of consultations per patient varied from 1 to 32. Most (56%) of those patients with more than four visits had invasive treatments. The median total time for t...