Standard Telephone Consultation for Pain

Physician to Physician Telephone Consultation for Chronic Pain Patients: a Pragmatic Randomized Trial

The purpose of this study is to investigate whether pain control for patients with chronic pain is improved by the availability of structured telephone consultations between the patients' family physicians and pain physicians, compared to pain control for patients receiving usual care.

Inclusion Criteria:

• patients referred to Alberta Health Services chronic pain center in Calgary with neurological or muscular skeletal pain

Exclusion Criteria:

• increased risk for suicide, very complex patients, family physician could not reliably identify patient's pain problem, or condition warranted expedited consultation with pain physician, case represented a new presentation of chronic regional pain syndrome, or low back pain with radicular symptoms or sciatica