Patients’ representations and antidepressant prescription in

chronic pain patients:

a typical case for non-congruence?

Lugano, November 2009

Background

Clear-cut evidence that antidepressants (ADs) are associated with pain relief

Patients’ adherence to AD medication is low

Adverse effects and patients’ representations of adverse effects are major determinants of non-adherence

Aims of the study

Investigation of: Chronic pain patients’ representations

about medication and antidepressants

Possible role of these representations in the poor adherence with antidepressant medication

Methods

Standardized semi-structured interviews: Chronic pain patients and pain-free non-patient

controls, matched for age, gender, educational status and origin

Representations of ADs (including AE, risks, personal experience, readiness to take ADs)

Responses were audio-taped, transcribed and submitted to content analysis

Population

Patients ControlsAge (mean, SD, 46.2 (14) 44.3 (16.2)

range) 19-89 18-86

Gender (% female) 52 55Educational status (%)- elementary school 32 35- qualified worker 37 28- high school 16 18

- university 15 19

Pain duration (median) 3 yearsPain intensity (mean) 76 (19)

Key results

Ambivalent representations about antidepressants in both groups

These representations hardly include the pain relief effects of antidepressants

No influence of pain, gender, age and previous AD intake on these issues

Ambivalent representations about antidepressants

Five main themes: Psychological and social effects Chemical effect in the brain Crutch effect Danger and addiction Somatic effects

Psychological and social effects

Concern with possible combined positive and negative physical, psychological and social effects expressed in the majority of the respondents.

Antidepressants indicated for psychological problems (e.g. uneasiness, irritability, anxiety, as well as for severe problems, including madness).

Viewed as possibly “helping to cope with emotions”, “restoring mood” or as having soothing effects in the context of negative life events and interpersonal problems,

But also as leading to “loss of drive” and thus of capacity to deal efficiently with life problems

And to “loss of desire”

Psychological and social effects

“To be calmer, or so that you accept more than you’d like to… it makes you do things you wouldn’t normally do. It helps accept a situation that normally I wouldn’t accept. I don’t know if it’s a good thing or not…”

Patient 39, female, 52 years, fibromyalgia

Ambivalent representations about antidepressants

Part of the danger seen as due to action in the brain (e.g. “inhibiting the brain functions” or “inducing brain atrophy”)

Help but not cure the problems and may even prevent cure

Need for additional treatments was often mentioned, ADs being a crutch or a spare wheel in the meantime

Dependence as a major risk

Crutch only – danger of addiction

"It’s something one becomes very quickly addicted to… in 15 days already… so it doesn’t solve the problems… it can even mask them… instead of trying to understand, to go to psychotherapy, one believes that the pill will solve everything"

Patient 7, female, 54 years, musculoskeletal pain

Somatic effects - pain

Somatic adverse effects (e.g. "cardiac problems", "sexual problems“, "weight increase“) in both groups

Main between-group difference: pain as an indication mentioned by 23 patients

However, 13 referred to pain consequences and only 10 to pain relief

Pain alleviation due to antidepressants not as a decrease in pain intensity but rather as a ways to get used to pain or help to think less about pain

Somatic effects - pain

"It helps me… maybe to forget my pain a bit… not being on the edge of tears all the time because I think about the situation I’m in and I don’t really know how to get out of it"

Patient 98, female, 43 years, low back pain

Somatic effects - pain

“[The patient read about ADs analgesic properties] This is only on paper! Decrease pain threshold! I don't believe in that at all. I'd never run the risk of becoming dependent and of having all these adverse effects only to decrease pain threshold!"

Patient 51, female, 57 years, fibromyalgia

Conclusions

Indication too much at odds with lay people’s representations? • Therapy judged as irrelevant• Perceived ‘delegitimation’

What about the non-congruence between these representations and physicians’ models?• Contradiction indication ‘brain’ – indication ‘pain’ • Patient-therapist relationship may be at risk

Conclusions

Patients’ representations may influence their understanding of the physician’s prescription• Need to elicit these representations• Need to address the patient’s own model of pain

This may in turn hinder/favour patients’ adherence with treatment

Conclusions

« If I were prescribed an antidepressant, it would be because I would be completely out of my mind... so I would no longer be able to know whether or not I need it.... because I would no longer be myself...»

37-year-old male; chronic LBP

The team of the multidisciplinary center

mai 07

http://reseaudouleur.hug-ge.ch/

Pain network of the Geneva University Hospitals. President: Dr C. Luthy