ArticleClinical therapeutics2013
Pain as the fifth vital sign: exposing the vital need for pain education.
Article in Clinical therapeutics, 2013. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 106 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
106 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- Pain management practice and associated factors among nurses working in Ethiopia: A systematic review and meta-analysis.PloS one · 2025Pooled it
- Is There Any Role for Opioids in the Management of Knee and Hip Osteoarthritis? A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis.Arthritis care & research · 2021Pooled it
- Erector spinae plane block for postoperative pain and recovery in hepatectomy: A randomized controlled trial.Medicine · 2020Trial
- The constant conflicts of opioid prescribing - GPs' views on treating chronic pain with opioids in primary care: a reflexive qualitative analysis.Scandinavian journal of primary health care · 2026Article
- Progress in pain mechanisms and management.Signal transduction and targeted therapy · 2026Review
- Pharmacy Benefit Manager Involvement in the US Opioid Crisis.JAMA health forum · 2026Article
- Oxytocin attenuates respiratory depression and reduces mortality from fentanyl and the combination of xylazine-fentanyl in rats.Biomedicine & pharmacotherapy = Biomedecine & pharmacotherapie · 2026Article
- Chronic Pain and Cognitive Dysfunction: Clinical Implement, Mechanism, and Therapeutic Strategy.The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience · 2026Review
- Prevalence of acute pain crisis in patients with cancer in Specialist Palliative Care Clinic: An observational study.BMC palliative care · 2026Observational
- Opioid dose, duration, and risk of use disorder in Medicaid patients with musculoskeletal pain.Pain medicine (Malden, Mass.) · 2026Article
- Clinical validation of the Integrative Vitality Scale: a screening and patient-centered assessment tool for frailty and depressive disorders.Frontiers in public health · 2026Observational
- Percutaneous Drug Delivery to the Masticatory System: A Systematic Review and Analysis of Randomized Clinical Trials.Biomedicines · 2025Review
- Trialing Over-the-Counter Mild Pain Medication Access in Queensland Prisons: The Experience of Women Prisoners.Health and human rights · 2025Article
- The Effect of Pain on the Relationship Between Triage Acuity and Emergency Department Hospitalization Rate and Length of Stay.The western journal of emergency medicine · 2025Article
- Sigma‑2 Receptor/Transmembrane Protein 97 in Pain Modulation: Tracing Historical Roots and Current Research Directions.ACS pharmacology & translational science · 2025Review
- The Effectiveness of Patient-Controlled Analgesia in Orthopedic Joint Replacements: A Systematic Review.Life (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Review
- Machine learning based quantitative pain assessment for the perioperative period.NPJ digital medicine · 2025Article
- Mechanisms of Remifentanil-Induced Postoperative Hyperalgesia: A Comprehensive Review.Drug design, development and therapy · 2025Review
- Article
- Natural Products with Potential for the Treatment of Pain: Global Evidence from the NAPRALERT Database.Journal of natural products · 2024Review
46 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
2 authors.
Funding
Abstract
The push to evaluate pain in patients as exemplified by the fifth vital sign has exposed serious deficits in practitioner education and training in pain assessment and management because patient report of pain level has become commonplace in clinical practice. The rapid increase in prescription opioid medications suggests that practitioners are trying to address their patients' pain by prescribing opioids. However, the increase in prescription opioids has also been associated with an increase in prescription opioid-related unintended deaths. In clinical practice, the fifth vital sign has proven to be more complex to assess, evaluate, and manage than originally anticipated. Expanding pain education and training is critical to remedying some of the issues the routine report of pain by patients has uncovered.
Indexed as
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What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.