What physicians think about the ethics of pain management

Forty-seven percent of physicians surveyed by Medscape said they would consider or definitely would undertreat a patient's pain due to regulatory concerns or fear of addiction.

Many physicians said they were particularly concerned about potential addiction amid the country's current opioid crisis. Of the 52,000 Americans who died of drug overdose in 2015, 63.1 percent involved a prescription or illicit opioid, according to the CDC.

"The patient's potential to become addicted always factors heavily in my treatment of their pain," a family physician responded in the survey.

However, if a patient is terminally ill, physicians were more comfortable prescribing pain medications, according to the survey. More than three-quarters of respondents (76 percent) said they would not undertreat a terminally ill patient's pain, even if they had concerns about regulations or addiction.

"A terminally ill patient's pain should be treated adequately — PERIOD. There is no excuse for not sufficiently treating a terminally ill patient's pain," an internist responded in the survey.

Responses are from the "Medscape Ethics Report 2016: Life, Death and Pain." Medscape conducted an online survey with more than 7,500 physicians across 25 specialties. See the full survey results here.

 

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