Determining chronic pain data elements as a first step towards improving quality of care and research in chronic pain

BACKGROUND: Chronic pain is a significant clinical problem in the world. There is still no quite effective treatment for this pain due to its complex nature. Timely retrieval of accurate and comprehensive information through organized clinical and epidemiological studies is an essential prerequisite for providing high quality clinical care and more accurate health planning. We aimed to determine minimum set of data needed as a first step in design and development of a chronic pain registry system. MATERIALS AND METHODS: This descriptive-applied study was carried out in three phases; identifying necessary minimum data, preparing a primary minimum dataset, and surveying expertsby questionnaire. RESULT: The literature review revealed that, theprimary minimum dataset consisted of 51 elements, which were reduced to 41 after applying the experts’ opinion. This dataset covered six areas:demographic information(8 elements), initial pain assessment(12 elements), medical history (8 elements), mental health and well-being(6 elements), diagnostic measures(3elements), and diagnosis and treatment plan (4 elements). CONCLUSION: Determining minimum set of chronic pain data will be an effective step towards integrating and improving information management of patients with chronic pain. It will also allow for proper storage and retrieval of information related to these patients.