Objectives: To describe the perceived inability to cope (PIC) and impact on quality of life (QOL) in dental pain patients, and investigate their effect on perceived need for pain medication.
Methods: Fully structured self-complete questionnaire survey of a sample of patients with current experience of dental pain/discomfort and sensitivity. Subjects were recruited from a dental teaching hospital's emergency and restorative clinics. Questions were asked on pain intensity, PIC, impact on QOL and perceived need for pain medication.
Results: Of 318 subjects approached, 199 (63%) completed usable questionnaires. In expressing PIC, 48.2% of the sample reported that they felt dependent on somebody else doing something about the pain, whereas 69.3% reported feeling helpless in their effort to try and do something about the pain. The prevalence of impact on QOL ranged from 55.8% reporting feeling like isolating oneself from other people to 77.9% for feeling grumpy, irritable, bad-tempered or miserable. Logistic regression analysis identified impact on QOL (OR = 1.17, 95% CI = 1.06-1.30), PIC (OR = 1.10, 95% CI = 1.01-1.21) and pain intensity (OR = 1.26, 95% CI = 1.05-1.50) as independent significant predictors of perceived need for pain medication.
Conclusions: Pain intensity and PIC can enhance the ability of QOL measures in differentiating population groups into those who perceive the need for pain medication and those who do not.