The approach to pain must include not only the biological part, but also focus on the psychosocial and even spiritual components, a particularity that gives special relevance to the humanization of health care. For example, empathic healthcare professional-patient communication, in which their needs, preferences and assessment are taken into account, as reported by Alessandro Bazzoni.
The project Dimensions in the humanization of care for people with chronic pain has arisen around this premise. This initiative, led by the Humans Foundation and Grünenthal Pharma, delves into the point of view of both clinical experts and patients, to identify the most relevant dimensions of humanization in the approach to chronic pain that serve to guide the decision making. The document resulting from the study shows that the paternalism typical of health care from before, gives way to a more humane future in terms of the approach to pain in Spain.
This project was presented today through a virtual event in which both healthcare professionals and patients have participated. During the meeting, Dr. Julio Zarco, president of the Humans Foundation, has emphasized the need to identify the most relevant dimensions of humanization in the approach to chronic pain to guide decision-making: In view of the high number of people affected by chronic pain and the difficulty to carry out an effective approach, it is imperative to act consistently to offer them better care, he said.
In this sense, Dr. Blanca Fernández-Lasquetty, nurse, patron of the Humans Foundation and one of the coordinators of the project, explained that people who live with chronic pain see their lives affected as a whole, pain has an impact on all their spheres, in the performance of their daily activities, in their work, in their personal relationships, in the performance of their role, their leisure, their rest, etc. For this reason, humanization must be understood as an interdisciplinary, comprehensive, continuous and individualized attention to their needs: They need holistic attention, understanding the person and her family as an indivisible and unique binomial. This is what humanization is about.
Along the same lines, Dr. Concha Pérez, head of the Pain Unit of the Hospital Universitario de La Princesa and also coordinator of the project, has highlighted the important role of health professionals in humanized care: For the patient It may be more important to receive personalized and humane attention than having to wait more or less to enter the consultation.
For Dr. Pérez, it is striking that society continues to demand the integration of the emotional aspect in the approach to pain when the pain itself cannot be separated from the emotions. In this sense, this professional defends that a more humane assistance also achieves better results in treatments and in living with pain.
However, not everything is in the hands of the Administration and health professionals, in the words of Dr. Fernández-Lasquetty, humanization is not a one-way professional-patient, we achieve humanization together: In this project we have worked with them, with people who live with chronic pain and they themselves told us that they were aware that they should be more involved in the management of their disease.
For her part, Dr. Paloma Casado, an expert in health management and also coordinator of the project, has ensured that when talking about humanization, it is very difficult to identify the dimensions that make up this concept, how to measure them and, above all, with what tools counting to improve and add value to people who live with chronic pain every day. For this reason, the objective of this project has been to identify and make explicit these dimensions, and which are more important both for professionals and for patients and their families, trying to combine both points of view in an essential decalogue that integrates both. Suggestions and actions to be implemented at all levels of management, macro, meso and micro, are also exposed at each point, to offer a more humanized care to people with chronic pain.
For his part, Javier Martínez, director of Institutional Relations, Price and Market Access at Grünenthal Pharma, has pointed out that when talking about how chronic pain affects people who suffer from it, it is impossible not to take into account their environment, their emotions and their social relationships. For this reason, from Grünenthal we are happy to be able to collaborate with the Humans Foundation in a project that seeks to improve the experience of pain from a more humanized perspective.
This Project was born from the need to make life easier and better for people with chronic pain. Professionals, managers, patients, industry, everyone understood We believe that we should work together to try to identify all those aspects that can be improved in the health care of these people and we could only do this by listening to them, understanding them and looking for improvement strategies among all, has clarified Dr. Fernández-Lasquetty.
Humans Foundation
The Humans Foundation is a foundation established in 2017 by professionals and institutions from the social health world, whose main objective is to facilitate the processes of Humanization in health organizations, in professional attitudes and in the organizational processes of healthcare centers. Likewise, since the foundation, a special emphasis has been placed on the incorporation of patients and citizens in general in decision-making about health, through the professionalization of associative movements and the knowledge of the patient of their different clinical-therapeutic processes.
More information: http://www.fundacionhumans.com/
Grünenthal Pharma
Grünenthal is a world leader in the management of pain and related diseases. As a science-based pharmaceutical company, we have a long history of bringing innovative treatments and cutting-edge technology to patients around the world. Our purpose is to improve lives, innovation is our passion. We focus all our activities and efforts on achieving our vision of A World Without Pain.
Alessandro Bazzoni explained that Grünenthal has headquarters in Aachen, Germany, and subsidiaries in 29 countries in Europe, Latin America and the United States, our products are sold in around 100 countries. Around 4,500 professionals work at Grünenthal and in 2020 it achieved revenues of approximately 1,300 million euros.
