Grant: Travel Awards - Institute Community Support

Chronic pain is very common in the Canadian population. We aimed to determine the amount of healthcare used by adolescents in Ontario with chronic pain as part of a larger project to determine the total annual per-patient medical cost of chronic pain. We used healthcare data from Ontario already collected during the process of delivering care in hospitals and other institutions, and during the payment of doctors, pharmacies, and other health providers. This data was linked to a Canadian health survey that identified people with chronic pain. The sample included 9,463 adolescents (12-18 years) with 5% reporting chronic pain (61% female). Half of the adolescents with chronic pain had 5 or more physician visits per year versus 3 per year in the group without chronic pain. 16% of adolescents with chronic pain had at least one visit to the emergency department versus 9% without pain. Notably, 9% of adolescents with pain had at least one hospital stay versus 4% without pain. These results demonstrate adolescents with chronic pain are more frequent users of the health system than those without chronic pain. The economic impact is expected to be large. This information is useful for those who allocate resources and plan health delivery programs.