Relationships between patient-related attitudinal barriers, analgesic adherence and pain relief in Chinese cancer inpatients

The purpose of this study was to evaluate patient-related attitudinal barriers and identify associated factors in Chinese cancer inpatients receiving opioids and to explore relationships between patient-related attitudinal barriers, analgesic adherence and pain relief. A cross-sectional study was conducted. A total of 146 participants completed face-to-face surveys, including information about demographics, the Barriers Questionnaire-Chinese (BQ-C), analgesic adherence, average pain and breakthrough pain in the past 24 h. The Mann-Whitney U test and Kruskal-Wallis test were performed to test the differences in the attitudinal barrier scores between the adherence and nonadherence groups, the complete and incomplete pain relief groups and the groups based on demographics. The majority of participants in this study were men (67.8%), over half of all participants were less than 60 years old, gastrointestinal cancer (47.3%) was the most common diagnosis and 59 (40.4%) acquired comprehensive pain education from the last discharge guidance procedure. The total BQ-C mean (SD) score was 1.61 ± 0.94. A total of 87 (59.6%) patients with cancer pain were completely relieved. Most of the patients (73.3%) completely took analgesics by orders. There was no significant difference in the total BQ-C score between the adherence group and the nonadherence group (P > 0.05), but the difference was significant between the complete pain relief group and the incomplete pain relief group (P < 0.05). The findings of this study support unsatisfactory pain management and moderate analgesic adherence for Chinese inpatients. It is suggested that patient-related attitudinal barriers do not play an undermining role in pain management by negatively affecting patients’ analgesic adherence. Conversely, patients’ beliefs are more likely to be shaped by under treatment rather than as a cause.