Abstract
The number of cancer patients has been constantly rising, and it is difficult to make them understand how to use opioids within a limited time for ambulatory care. As a result, there are cases of inadequate pain control and deterioration in adherence to medication due to adverse effects.
With the goal of improving various problems in symptom relief for cancer patients, pharmacists of a palliative care team of the Pharmaceutical Department in Jichi Medical University Hospital launched their involvement in explaining opioid introduction and pain control for outpatients receiving chemotherapy. Pain assessment was conducted using a Numeric Rating Scale.
There were 32 cases of initial instructions for opioid introduction, 86 cases of ongoing assessment of pain/side effect, 42 cases of telephone support after the patient returned home, 49 cases of involvement in pain-killer prescription, and 27 cases of inadequate drug adherence.
In research on NRS at the initiation of involvement in pain management as well as at the end of chemotherapy in 84 patients whose treatment was shifted to palliative-based therapy, verification of the results by Wilcoxon t-test (p<0.01) showed a significant reduction in pain.
The significant reduction in NRS shows that pharmacists of palliative care teams with experience of pain management are able to perform appropriate patient education and pain management by being involved from the stage of opioid introduction in outpatients receiving cancer chemotherapy.
