[Economic aspects of pain therapy].

Chronic pain has an economic impact for the society and the patients suffering from chronic pain. The indirect costs of chronic pain (loss of productivity, social security payments) are higher than the direct costs (prevention, diagnosis and therapy). The indirect costs in the family are often underestimated. It is proven that in-patient and out-patient treatment in multidisciplinary pain centers are effective. In-patient treatment is more expensive. Multidisciplinary pain programmes increase the return-to-work-rate significantly. Further investigations are requested to uncover costs and outcome of different pain treatment methods.