Introduction: Transcutaneous Electrical Nerve Stimulation (TENS) has been shown to be successful in treating acute as well as chronic pain. But, it has been greatly underused especially for acute pain. Current prospective audit was conducted to evaluate the efficacy of TENS in acute and chronic pain conditions and to evaluate its efficacy on various components of pain.  

Method: Fifty patients suffering from acute and chronic pain were included in the audit. All the parameters of TENS were set and intensity kept at minimum, which was then increased gradually to maximum tolerability. Intermittent therapy was given for all but postsurgical pain, for which continuous therapy was used.  Result: Pain relief was better after the treatment in both the groups (p<0.001), but was found to be even better in acute pain group (p<0.001). Improvement in limitation of movements, mood and capacity to work was found to be better in chronic pain patients, whereas greater reduction in the need for other analgesics was observed in patients with acute pain. The best results in both groups were obtained at TENS frequency of 100 Hz and pulse rate of 10 waves/seconds. The effect of TENS on sympathetic system was not very impressive.

Conclusion: TENS resulted in best pain relief with frequency of 100Hz and pulse rate of 10 waves/sec. TENS resulted in better pain relief, reduction in duration of pain, and requirement of other conventional analgesics in acute compared to chronic pain patients hence it should be utilized for acute pain conditions more often.