A Study of Patient Clinician Interaction and Abnormal Illness Behaviours among Subjects with Chronic Non Organic Pain

Introduction: Patient clinician interaction is an important component of Abnormal Illness Behaviours(AIB) and can have significant impact on the patients’ as well health care settings. AIB has beenmeasured more with self-report scales compared to objective rating scales. This study assessed patientclinician interaction among in chronic pain using an objective scale, Illness Behaviour AssessmentSchedule (IBAS).Method: Details of demography and illness were collected using a semis-structured schedule. IBASwas administered to 301 adult subjects with chronic non-organic pain to assess patient clinicalinteraction and illness behaviour patterns.Findings: Majority of the sample consisted of women (N=208; 69%). The mean duration of painsymptoms in years was 5.78± 5.43. Majority of the subjects did not acknowledge or were not sure ofreceiving any explanation for their illness. Subjects recalled the causal explanation as having bothpsychological and somatic causes. Nearly 70% of the subjects attributed their affective disturbance tosomatic problems. Gender differences were noted in communication of affect with more men havingmoderate to marked inhibition. (Chi square 7.78, p=0.005).Conclusions: This study highlights that patients often do not recall the explanations provided fortheir symptoms and may attribute their symptoms based on their own beliefs. This may correlate toabnormal illness behaviours. It is important to patient clinician interaction regarding the painsymptoms and attribution for appropriate management.

Keywords:

Abnormal Illness Behaviours , pain , patient clinician interaction