Impact of Continuing Medical Education for Physicians on the Quality of Cancer Pain Treatment in China

Abstract

Context: The management of cancer pain has gained attention in China since the proposal of the three-step analgesic ladder in 1986 and has been further improved after the Chinese Ministry of Health launched the campaign for "Good Pain Management Ward" in 2011. The Beijing Pain Management Center for Quality Control and Improvement was formed with the intent to improve the quality of pain management by various means such as providing continuing medical education (CME) and conducting evaluation in Beijing, the capital of China.

Objectives: The objective of this study was to investigate the impact of CME on cancer pain treatment in hospitals in Beijing, China.

Methods: The Beijing Pain Management Center for Quality Control and Improvement carried out annual CME on cancer pain treatment for physicians in Beijing in February from 2016 to 2019. The quality of cancer pain treatment in these hospitals was evaluated in August 2015, 2017 and 2019 by using an evaluation instrument containing eight domains. The evaluation results were retrospectively reviewed to assess the impact of CME.

Results: After annual CME for four successive years, a significant increase in evaluation scores for cancer pain treatment was observed in the participating hospitals. The increased trend varied widely both among the levels of hospitals (secondary and two tiers of tertiary hospitals) and among evaluation domains. These hospitals scored lowest in domains related to opioid tolerance, ongoing care, and risk of nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs in the last evaluation.

Conclusion: CME significantly improved the quality of cancer pain treatment in the participating hospitals. Thus, standard CME courses may be adopted to improve the quality of cancer pain treatment by other regions in China and other countries.

Keywords: Pain treatment; cancer pain; continuing medical education; opioid analgesics; physicians.