Student Science Club at the Department of Anesthesiology, Intensive Therapy and Acute Intoxications, Pomeranian Medical University, 70-111 Szczecin, Poland.
Department of Anesthesiology, Intensive Therapy and Acute Intoxications, Pomeranian Medical University, 70-111 Szczecin, Poland.
Medicina (Kaunas). 2019 Aug 26;55(9):533. doi: 10.3390/medicina55090533.
Adequate pain management is a major challenge of public health. The majority of students graduating from medical schools has insufficient education and experience with patients suffering pain. Not enough is being taught regarding pain in non-verbal patients (children, critically ill in the intensive care unit, demented). Chronic pain is the most difficult to optimize and requires appropriate preparation at the level of medical school. Our aim was to evaluate attitudes, expectations and the actual knowledge of medical students at different levels of their career path regarding the assessment and treatment of acute and chronic pain. We performed an observational cross-sectional study that was based on a survey distributed among medical students of pre-clinical and post-clinical years at the Pomeranian Medical University in Szczecin, Poland. The survey included: demographic data, number of hours of formal pain teaching, actual knowledge of pain assessment, and pain treatment options in adults and children. We received responses from 77/364 (21.15%) students and 79.2% of them rated the need to obtain knowledge regarding pain as very important (10/10 points). Post-clinical group declared having on average 11.51 h of acute pain teaching as compared to the 7.4 h reported by the pre-clinical group ( = 0.012). Graduating students also reported having significantly more classes regarding the treatment of chronic pain (6.08 h vs. 3.79 h, = 0.007). The average level of comfort in the post-clinical group regarding treatment of acute pain was higher than in the pre-clinical group (6.05 vs. 4.26, = 0.006), similarly with chronic pain treatment in adults (4.33 vs. 2.97, = 0.021) and with pain treatment in children (3.14 vs. 1.97, = 0.026). This study shows that education about pain management is a priority to medical students. Despite this, there continues to be a discrepancy between students' expectations and the actual teaching and knowledge regarding effective pain management, including the vulnerable groups: chronic pain patients, children, and critically ill people.
充分的疼痛管理是公共卫生的一大挑战。大多数从医学院毕业的学生在治疗疼痛患者方面接受的教育和经验都不足。对于非言语患者（儿童、重症监护病房的危重患者、痴呆患者）的疼痛，教授的内容还不够。慢性疼痛是最难优化的，需要在医学院层面进行适当的准备。我们的目的是评估不同医学专业学生对急性和慢性疼痛评估和治疗的态度、期望和实际知识。我们进行了一项观察性横断面研究，该研究基于在波兰什切青波美拉尼亚医科大学的临床前和临床后学生中进行的一项调查。该调查包括：人口统计学数据、正式疼痛教学的时间、疼痛评估的实际知识以及成人和儿童的疼痛治疗选择。我们收到了 77/364（21.15%）名学生的回复，其中 79.2%的学生认为获得疼痛相关知识非常重要（10/10 分）。临床后组报告平均有 11.51 小时的急性疼痛教学，而临床前组报告的教学时间为 7.4 小时（ = 0.012）。即将毕业的学生还报告说，他们有更多关于慢性疼痛治疗的课程（6.08 小时与 3.79 小时， = 0.007）。临床后组在处理急性疼痛方面的舒适度平均水平高于临床前组（6.05 与 4.26， = 0.006），在成人慢性疼痛治疗方面（4.33 与 2.97， = 0.021）和儿童疼痛治疗方面（3.14 与 1.97， = 0.026）也是如此。这项研究表明，疼痛管理教育是医学生的首要任务。尽管如此，学生的期望与有效疼痛管理的实际教学和知识之间仍然存在差距，包括弱势群体：慢性疼痛患者、儿童和危重症患者。
