[Quality improvement in conservative pain management (QUIKS) : A module of the QUIPS project for benchmarking of pain treatment in patients with nonoperative care].

Background: National and international surveys have shown that the quality of pain therapy in hospitals shows deficits, especially in the nonoperative disciplines.

Objective: The objective was to develop and clinically validate a module for the outcome and process parameters for pain management in patients in the context of a conservative/nonoperative hospital treatment analogous to the QUIPS questionnaire (quality improvement in postoperative pain therapy), which focuses on postoperative pain management.

Material And Methods: In a 4-step procedure the QUIPS outcome questionnaire and the process assessment sheet of the QUIPS module were adapted to the conditions of conservative/nonoperative treatment. Patients from internal medicine, neurology and dermatology took part in the systematic testing and the clinical validation.

Results: A total of 973 patients were enrolled (inclusion rate 74%, n = 403 internal medicine, n = 401 neurology, n = 169 dermatology). The majority completed the questionnaire independently while 33% of the patients needed support, which was given in the form of an interview. Apart from a few deficits, most questions about pain intensity and function were fully recorded. The evaluation of the outcome was difficult as regardless of the pain therapy, a relevant proportion of the patients reported no pain. Due to the lack of conclusive diagnoses at the time of the assessment, organ-related disease groups were developed using word diagnoses instead of the OPS coding used in QUIPS.

Conclusion: In addition to the perioperative modules of QUIPS, QUIKS (quality improvement in conservative pain management), an instrument for quality assurance of pain treatment in patients in nonoperative disciplines, is now available.