Health education helps to relieve postembolization pain during hepatic arterial chemoembolization therapy

Aim: Psychological intervention has been proved a complementary approach to drug analgesia. Another study suggested that health knowledge is associated with psychological symptoms in patients with liver cancer. This study is conducted to assess whether improving the health education (HE) alleviates the postembolization pain during transarterial chemoembolization (TACE). Materials and methods: One hundred and fifteen patients, who required TACE for hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) and suffered postembolization pain, were randomized into control group (n=63) and HE group (n=52). The health knowledge was scaled with the health knowledge questionnaire (HKQ). The postembolization pain was scored using a 0-10 numeric rating scale (NRS-10) after arterial embolization in both groups. Results: There were no statistical differences between male and female in all HKQ scores (P>0.05). The HKQ scores of young people (≤45 years old) were significantly higher than those of elders (>45 years old; P<0.05). After teaching HE, the HKQ scores were significantly increased in patients of the HE group (P<0.01). The postembolization pain score in the HE group was significantly lower than that in the control group (P<0.05). The HKQ scores of question 1, 3, and total were negatively correlated with the pain score in this sample (P<0.05). Conclusion: Improving the HE among HCC patients before TACE is beneficial for the pain relief during interventional procedure.