[Neuropathic pain among hospital in-patients. Analysis of Austrian hospital discharge data]

Abstract

Background: Neuropathic pain is a common symptom of many diseases among in-patients in hospitals and neuropathic pain itself often requires hospitalisation. It was the aim of this study to examine epidemiological key data related to neuropathic pain among hospital in-patients.

Methods: The source of the data used was the ICD-10 coded main diagnoses with neuropathic pain of a complete data set of discharges obtained for every Austrian hospital for the year 2002.

Results: A total of 49,412 cases (614/100,000 inhabitants) with diagnoses always associated with neuropathic pain were recorded, representing 2.0% of all discharges from Austrian hospitals. Furthermore, there were as many as 353,893 cases with diagnoses which are possibly associated with neuropathic pain, like cancer, diabetes mellitus and stroke, representing 14.3% of all cases discharged from hospitals. Applying the proportion of those suffering from neuropathic pain among patients with these three diagnoses which is known from the literature would result in 5.8% of all hospital in-patients suffering from neuropathic pain.

Conclusion: These data represent a first step in the assessment of the epidemiology of neuropathic pain and show the high extent of neuropathic pain in the Austrian in-patient setting.