[Pain and ethnicity - results of a survey at three internal/gynecological first-aid stations in Berlin].

QUESTION: How high is the pain pressure in everyday life of German vs. not German patients, with which troubles do they come to the emergency room, how intense is their pain, how long is it lasting, how many pain areas are named? GROUP OF PATIENTS/
METHODS: The study "Utilization of clinical emergency rooms by German patients and migrants" was carried out at first-aid stations of three Berlin hospitals in municipal districts with a high share of foreigners in the population in the form of standardized interviews on following topics: roads to have access to the emergency room, perception and interpretation of pain/troubles, expectations from the first-aid station, further medical care, chronical diseases, self-help measures, social data, migration aspects.
RESULTS: An everyday life pressure because of headache and rheumatic pains was named significant more often by migrants of Turkish extraction than by the German women asked. In the age-group 50-65 years the migrants chose significant higher scale values to characterize their pain intensity. Migrants named all in all clearly more pain areas than German patients. The share of patients with pain persisting more than three days was 36.1 % in German women, 45.5 % in migrants of Turkish origin, 45.8 % in women of other ethnicity.
CONCLUSIONS: Pain interpretation as well as pain expression are socio-culturally conditioned. Differences between migrants and native patients should lead to take more into consideration the concrete life situation and specific strain in the patients' treatment.