Purpose COVID-19 pandemic containment measures have led to changes in various areas of life, including restrictions on health care. Patients with chronic pain may have faced an increased burden during pandemic and the resources of this vulnerable population are unknown. Therefore, a qualitative study was conducted to understand how people with chronic pain have experienced the course of the pandemic. Patients and Methods Twenty semi-structured telephone interviews were conducted six months after the initial lockdown in Germany. The participants were patients with chronic pain who exhibited varying changes in their pain during the first German lockdown, recruited from a German outpatient pain clinic at a Department of Anesthesiology and Intensive Care. The semi-structured interview guidelines were designed to explore how patients with chronic pain experienced their pain during the pandemic, how they coped, and how they experienced pain management during this time. The interview recordings were transcribed verbatim and coded using the qualitative content analysis method. Results Four themes emerged from the results: differential impact on pain experience, difficulty coping with pain, supportive pain management, and endurance. Conclusion During this uncertain time, it was particularly important to maintain pain treatment in order to establish a sense of safety and stability. This underscores the special role of maintaining therapeutic contact during a pandemic and the potentially special role of telemedicine.

The treatment of chronic pain with cannabinoids is becoming more widespread and popular among patients. However, studies show that only a few patients experience any benefit from this treatment. It also remains unclear which domains are affected by cannabinoid treatment. Therefore, the present study is novel in that it explores the effects of cannabinoid treatment on four patient-related outcome measures (PROMs), and includes patients with chronic refractory pain conditions who have been given the option of cannabinoid treatment. A retrospective design was used to evaluate the impact of cannabinoid treatment on patients with refractory pain in two German outpatient pain clinics. The present study shows that pain intensity (mean relative reduction (−14.9 ± 22.6%), emotional distress (−9.2 ± 43.5%), pain-associated disability (−7.0 ± 46.5%) and tolerability of pain (−11 ± 23.4%)) improved with cannabinoid treatment. Interestingly, the trajectories of the PROMs seemed to differ between patients, with only 30% of patients responding with respect to pain intensity, but showing improvements in other PROMs. Although the mean treatment effects remained limited, the cumulative magnitude of change in all dimensions may affect patients’ quality of life. In summary, a singular evaluation with pain intensity as the sole outcome does not cover the multidimensional effects of cannabinoids. Therefore, the treatment effects of cannabinoids should be evaluated with different PROMs.