Hospitalized pain patients have recently doubled: a retrospective case series study in Shenzhen Nanshan People's Hospital of China.

AIM: To study the characteristics of hospitalized pain patients in Shenzhen with the aim of identifying some of the social, economic and therapeutic aspects of pain management in China. METHODS: A retrospective study was designed to collect the information of 3061 hospitalized pain patients in 2003, 2007 and 2011. Their demographic characteristics, diagnoses of pain types, hospitalization, therapeutic effect, economic cost and payment types were analyzed. RESULTS: The number of female patients significantly increased with time. The patient's average age increased from 41.3 in 2003 to 49.7 years old in 2011. The most common diagnosis of pain was lumbar intervertebral disc herniation. The total hospitalization days of each patient per year significantly decreased from 15.7 days in 2003 to 10.4 days in 2011. However, the hospitalization cost for each patient was almost doubled. CONCLUSION: The hospitalized pain patients and their economic burdens have almost been doubled in the recent four years.