WHO published guidelines for analgesic use but these guidelines have never been adequately tested. Efforts to improve pain management usually focus on educating physicians. However, it is not clear whether this will change their behavior. Medical schools should include pain management in their undergraduate curricula.
Hospitals can also develop quality improvement programs to improve their management of pain.
Patients should demand appropriate pain relief in light of evidence showing that few hospital patients become addicted to painkillers. Inadequate treatment of pain continues to be a problem despite more knowledge about its causes and control and despite widespread efforts of governments and multiple medical and voluntary organizations to disseminate this knowledge, particularly at the postgraduate level. Most cancer in these countries is advanced, and treating its pain is the only practical approach available. Inadequate pain treatment, however, is not limited to cancer patients or patients in developing countries. All types of pain in all parts of the world are inadequately treated, be it acute or chronic, related to malignant or nonmalignant etiologies.