Abstract
Study design
An online questionnaire.
Objectives
To assess the international spinal cord medicine and rehabilitation community’s utilization of pharmacological and non-pharmacological treatments for spinal cord damage (SCD)-related pain and to determine whether approaches to SCD-related pain differ between developed and less developed nations.
Setting
An international collaboration of authors.
Methods
An on-line survey querying availability and utilization of a number of approaches to SCD-related pain was developed, distributed, and made available for 6 months. Responses were analyzed for the entire cohort and according to participants’ descriptions of their home nations’ economies.
Results
A total of 153 responses were submitted, mostly from developed nations. Nearly three quarters of subjects reported offering their patients with SCD narcotics; only 13% reported offering their patients with SCD medical cannabis. Subjects from developing countries were more likely than those from developed countries to prescribe buprenorphine (20.0% vs 15.6%; p = 0.001) and less likely to prescribe medical cannabis (0% vs 15.6%; p = 0.001) and acupuncture (4.0% vs 23.4%; p = 0.02).
Conclusions
Most spinal cord medicine clinicians employ a multimodal approach to pain. There are significant differences in utilization of pharmacologic and non-pharmacologic approach to SCD-related pain between clinicians from more and less developed countries.
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Data availability
The datasets generated and analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.
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Stillman, M., Graves, D., New, P.W. et al. Survey on current treatments for pain after spinal cord damage. Spinal Cord Ser Cases 5, 14 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41394-019-0160-5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41394-019-0160-5
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