Diagnosis and evaluation of neuropathic pain in general practice: Expert panel recommendations for the French-speaking North-African countries

Over the past decade, several recommendations on the diagnosis, evaluation, and treatment of neuropathic pain (NeP) have been published. These guidelines are evidence-based and have been developed by expert panels of major scientific associations, most of whom being American or European. Although these recommendations can be applied to most patients, a gap does exist because they do not take into account the specific health status and socio-cultural and professional practice conditions in the different regions of the world. To date there are no published guidelines for NeP in the French-speaking North-African countries (Algeria, Tunisia, Morocco). Based on the rationale that the diagnosis and evaluation of NeP are crucial to propose an adapted treatment, a multidisciplinary panel of French-speaking North-African experts met to review critically the available data and to reach a consensus on how best applying evidence-based guidelines for the diagnosis and evaluation of NeP in their countries. The expert panel recommends to increase diagnosis awareness of NeP by using validated screening questionnaires, in particular the DN4 questionnaire, and to evaluate patients by systematic examination with the help of simple and accessible tools. These recommendations will help the practitioners to identify the qualitative features of NeP and to make a differential diagnosis between NeP and nociceptive pain clinically and without additional tests. © 2011 Elsevier Masson SAS.