The effect of education and clinical practice on knowledge enlightenment to and attitudes toward the use of analgesics for cancer pain among physicians and medical students.

BACKGROUND Insufficient education and limited clinical practice on the part of physicians may contribute to the undertreatment of cancer pain in Taiwan. To address these concerns, a survey among physicians and fifth-year medical students relevant to cancer pain management (CPM) was carried out in a medical school and its principal teaching hospital. METHODS A questionnaire on CPM was sent to 97 physicians and 78 fifth-year medical students (equivalent to the third-year medical students in the United States). The same questionnaire was delivered again to these 78 fifth-year medical students after they had completed a modified curriculum of anesthesiology with a 4-hour course on introduction to clinical pharmacology of CPM. RESULTS The physicians knowledgeable on pain (physicians of anesthesiology, hematology-oncology, or radiation oncology), physicians unfamiliar with pain (outside of anesthesiology, hematology-oncology, or radiation oncology), and the 5th-yr medical students took similar negative attitudes (24-92%, 33-89%, and 23-94%) toward the optimal use of analgesics for CPM. As compared, the mean score on knowledge of prescribing opioids of pain-knowledgeable physicians was 3.60, the highest of all as against 2.61 of other physicians and 2.54 of 5th-yr medical students. On attitudes toward prescribing opioids, both pain-knowledgeable physicians and other physicians scored a higher means, respectively of 3.52 and 2.91 as opposed to 2.68 of 5th-yr medical students, the lowest of all. However, seniority or length of clinical practice did not improve knowledge or affect attitudes toward CPM. In addition, this 4-hour course did enable the 5th-yr medical students to take a more positive attitude toward and become more knowledgeable on CPM than pain-knowledgeable physicians, as a comparison was made. CONCLUSIONS The effect of accumulation of clinical experience and seniority of clinical practice on CPM was limited among general physicians, except for clinical specialty on anesthesiology, hematology-oncology, or radiation oncology. In Taiwan, the knowledge of and positive attitude toward CPM could only be conveyed to physicians through undergraduate, post graduate or on-job education.