The PAINN Study - a Pilot Cross Sectional Study

Pain prevalence in hospitalized patients has been reported between 65% and 75%, indicating poor and/or insufficient management. In addition, pain prevalence has been estimated for separate groups of individuals with specific neurological/neurosurgical conditions (25% - 84%) and the overall prevalence was calculated as 36% (95% CI: 31% - 42%). However, investigations on prevalence of pain in Danish neurologic inpatients is scarce, which may indicate an overlooked symptom in local neurologic settings.

This project was a cross-sectional investigation to identify pain prevalence, intensity and interference in admitted patients needing home menicahal ventilation (HMV) and we conducted as an exploratory investigation to collect data from the patients by pain questionnaires/instruments, observation of patients' pain behavior and physiologic parameters. The main patients' diagnoses were spinal cord injury, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, cerebral palsy, spinal muscular atrophy, and defects from birth such as tracheomalacia. The study included 40 participants, all recruited from Respiratory Center East, University of Copenhagen, Rigshospitalet