Previous work on this project developed test instruments for the measurement of cancer pain and its impact on the cancer patient. Although the sample of patients obtained is large (N = 1300), all patients have been under treatment at one comprehensive cancer center. One proposed study will extend the sample to a broader representation of patients in Wisconsin. Members of the Wisconsin Oncology Nursing Group will administer pain questionnaires to patients in hospital, clinical, and hospice settings where they work, providing information on possible institutional differences in the prevalence and severity of cancer pain. This will require control for site and stage of disease. A second proposed study will evaluate patient pain descriptors and pain location drawings obtained from cancer patients as predictors of the categorization of the physical basis of cancer pain made by a criterion physician panel. The physician panel will also develop a pain severity index for different sites of cancer at different stages. This study is supported by data which suggest judgement of the physical basis of pain, as well as by the frequent (50%) failure of current chart information to address the physical basis of cancer pain. Finally, we will supplement data being obtained from health professionals concerning their attitudes toward cancer pain and its treatment, wich a survey of lay attitudes towards pain in cancer, its function in the public's perception of treatment of the disease, and its role in the formation of opinions that life should not be prolonged. The project will involve clinical and research psychologists, physicians from several specialities, and a statistician specializing in multivariate analysis. Data provided by the three portions of the study should be useful for planning resource allocation, treatment research, and professional and public education.
