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. 2021 Feb 8;6(1):e891.
doi: 10.1097/PR9.0000000000000891. eCollection 2021 Jan-Feb.

Impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the pharmacological, physical, and psychological treatments of pain: findings from the Chronic Pain & COVID-19 Pan-Canadian Study

Anaïs Lacasse  1 , M Gabrielle Pagé  2   3 , Lise Dassieu  2 , Nadia Sourial  2   4 , Audrée Janelle-Montcalm  2 , Marc Dorais  5 , Hermine Lore Nguena Nguefack  1 , Marimée Godbout-Parent  1 , Maria Hudspith  6 , Gregg Moor  6 , Kathryn Sutton  6 , James M Thompson  7   8 , Manon Choinière  2   3
Affiliations

Impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the pharmacological, physical, and psychological treatments of pain: findings from the Chronic Pain & COVID-19 Pan-Canadian Study

Anaïs Lacasse et al. Pain Rep. .

Abstract

Introduction: Multimodal treatment is recognized as the optimal paradigm for the management of chronic pain (CP). Careful balance between pharmacological and physical/psychological approaches is thus desirable but can be easily disrupted.

Objectives: This study aimed at exploring the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on pharmacological and physical/psychological treatments of CP.

Methods: A Pan-Canadian cross-sectional web-based study was conducted between April 16th and May 31st 2020 among adults living with CP when the country was in the ascending slope of the first COVID-19 pandemic wave.

Results: A total of 2864 participants shared their treatment experience (mean age: 49.7 years and women: 83.5%). Among medication users (n = 2533), 38.3% reported changes in their pharmacological pain treatment. The main reasons were as follows: (1) changes in pain symptoms, (2) lack of access to prescribers/cancellation of medical appointments, and (3) increased medication intake in compensation for stopping physical/psychological treatments because of the pandemic. Among participants who used physical/psychological pain management approaches before the pandemic (n = 2467), 68.3% had to modify their treatments or self-management strategies. Common reasons were lack of access to clinics/exercise facilities and the need to compensate for having to stop another type of physical/psychological treatment because of the pandemic-related public health safety measures.

Conclusions: Our study underlines the negative impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on access to pain relief, which is considered a fundamental human right. Results will help to justify resource allocation and inform the development of interventions to be better prepared for waves to come and future health crises.

Keywords: COVID-19; Chronic pain; Pain management; Web-based cross-sectional study.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors have no conflicts of interest to declare.Sponsorships or competing interests that may be relevant to content are disclosed at the end of this article.

Figures

Figure 1.
Figure 1.
COVID-related reasons why participants reported having changed their pharmacological pain treatments during the pandemic. *Categories are not mutually exclusive because participants could list various reasons; N.B. 577 of the 970 participants who reported changes in their pain medication (59.48%) did not provide any specific reason (2.37%) or reasons not related to the COVID-19 pandemic (57.11%) –e.g., drug side effects and litigation with insurance company (data not shown in the graph).
Figure 2.
Figure 2.
COVID-related reasons why participants reported having changed their physical/psychological pain treatments during the pandemic. *Categories are not mutually exclusive since participants could list various reasons; N.B. 277 of the 1685 participants who reported changes in their physical/psychological pain treatments (16.44%) did not provide any specific reason (0.83%) or reasons not related to the COVID-19 pandemic (15.61%) (data not shown in the graph).
Figure 3.
Figure 3.
Proportions of participants having reported changes in their pharmacological or physical/psychological pain treatments during the pandemic according to the week of questionnaire completion.
Figure 4.
Figure 4.
Proportions of participants having reported changes in their pharmacological or physical/psychological pain treatments during the pandemic according to sex.
Figure 5.
Figure 5.
Proportions of participants having reported changes in their pharmacological (upper panel) or physical/psychological treatments (lower panel) during the pandemic according to province of residence. QC: Quebec, BC: British Columbia, AB: Alberta, SK: Saskatchewan, MB: Manitoba, ON: Ontario, NB: New Brunswick, NS: Nova Scotia, PEI: Prince Edward Island, NL: Newfoundland and Labrador, YK: Yukon; PEI (n = 7), NL (n = 18), and YK (n = 1) were grouped because of the small sample size.
Figure 6.
Figure 6.
Proportions of participants having reported changes in their pharmacological or physical/psychological pain treatments during the pandemic according to the body location of pain symptoms. *Categories are not mutually exclusive since participants could list various body locations.
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