First EFIC® Symposium Societal Impact of Pain - SIP

Jos Kleijnen
Prof. Jos Kleijnen, MD,
Director, Kleijnen Systematic Reviews Ltd, York,
UK.
www.systematic-reviews.com
Literature review about the epidemiology of
chronic pain in 8 European countries and Europe
as a whole.
Chronic pain is very common but good data
are scarce about the prevalence, incidence,
diagnosis, severity, treatment, utilization of
health care, and the impact of chronic non-cancer
pain on society, health care systems and
the patient.
Information about the epidemiology of chronic
pain can help health care professionals as well
as decision and policy makers decide about
health budgets and prioritization, patient segmenting
and budget fencing, and therapy budgets,
including behavioural therapy and drug
budgets.
This presentation aims to provide epidemiological
information about chronic non-cancer pain
in Europe using the most representative, recent,
comprehensive and valid studies. We have
reviewed the literature about 21 different questions
relevant to chronic pain for each of the
following countries: Germany, UK, France, Italy,
Spain, Sweden, Denmark, the Netherlands, and
Europe as a whole.
The questions that we addressed ranged from
what is the prevalence and incidence of chronic
pain, what are the underlying diseases, what
are the treatments used, what is patients’ compliance
and satisfaction, to what are the costs
of chronic pain? More than 1000 individual
studies were included, and the results presented
in reports for each country.
This presentation will give some snapshots of
the most interesting findings: there is a tremendous
amount of information about chronic pain
in Europe, and the vast majority comes from
the specific countries. A lot of data/studies
exist, but far fewer studies addressed a representative
general chronic pain population, so
some care in interpretation is warranted.
Prevalence of chronic pain is high in Europe
(12-26%). Mean annual costs per annum per
chronic pain patient are typically several
thousand euros, increasing to low 5-figure
sums from societal perspectives.
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