Experience of Chronic (Non-malignant) Musculoskeletal Pain of French Adolescent and Young Adult: a Qualitative Research With Their Physicians and Non-medical Practitioners (DMS-AJA)

November 17, 2025 updated by: Assistance Publique - Hôpitaux de Paris

The purpose of this study is to explore the perspectives of health professionals on chronic (non-malignant) musculoskeletal pain in adolescence and young adulthood. The prevalence of this pain symptom is rising for ten years, and most of the time the diagnosis is complex. Health professionals have to differentiate between the continuing activity of a somatic problem, some painful sequelae, a low threshold for the perception of pain, and psychological symptoms with somatic expression. Diagnosis in this case takes time, and is a matter of trained specialists. No protocol exists to assess the sub-clinical symptoms which will be used to help doing this complex task.

This qualitative study will elicit the perspectives of trained specialists on this diagnosis: how do they deal with these patients? What signs and symptoms helps them? The results will present their clinical experiences. The overall goal is to construct the first chronic musculoskeletal pain multidimensional scale that will help the practitioners with this complex diagnosis.

Study Overview

Status

Completed

Conditions

Intervention / Treatment

Detailed Description

Recent research suggests that musculoskeletal pain may be the most common complaint for which children are referred to a pediatric rheumatologist and is present in approximately 50% of all new patients. A small percentage of these patients will be diagnosed with a form of juvenile idiopathic arthritis (JIA), which is marked by clinically significant pain. A larger percentage will be diagnosed with a musculoskeletal pain syndrome, that approximately 25% of them are chronic and defined as > = 3 months. The chronic pain symptom is a subjective one that professionals have to precise its outlines in term of semiology, nature and efficacity of past treatments, medical and family backgrounds. The professional then will have to pinpoint a diagnosis, while assessing the consequences of the pain and treating it.

Most of the time this task is a complex one and professionals have to build their diagnostic on a body of clinical, paraclinical and more social, familial and psychological evidences. No clear protocol exists to help the professionals with differentiating the continuing activity of a somatic problem, some painful sequelae, a low threshold for the perception of pain, and psychological symptoms with somatic expression. This diagnostic process is lying on sub-clinical symptoms that investigators have to elicit in order to help professionals to better support their patients.

This qualitative study will explore the daily clinical experience of the health professionals involved in the care of adolescents suffering from chronic musculoskeletal pain. Semi-structured interviews will be analyzed with a phenomenological approach (interpretative phenomenological analysis). The rich phenomenological description will be the first step of a more ambitious project of constructing a multidimensional scale that will help the practitioners with this complex diagnosis.

Study Type

Observational

Enrollment (Actual)

25

Contacts and Locations

This section provides the contact details for those conducting the study, and information on where this study is being conducted.

Study Locations

  • France
    • Paris
      • Paris, Paris, France, 75014
        • Cochin Hospital
      • Paris, Paris, France, 75015
        • Necker hospital

Participation Criteria

Researchers look for people who fit a certain description, called eligibility criteria. Some examples of these criteria are a person's general health condition or prior treatments.

Eligibility Criteria

Ages Eligible for Study

25 years to 70 years (Adult, Older Adult)

Accepts Healthy Volunteers

No

Sampling Method

Non-Probability Sample

Study Population

The study will concern the health professionals who takes care of adolescents suffering from chronic (non-malignant) musculoskeletal pain. In France, the medical specialities concerned are paediatric medicine, rheumatology, pain medicine, adolescent medicine and psychiatry. The investigators also want to include participants from paramedical fields: physiotherapists, ergotherapists and psychologists. The participants will be selected in the large repository of the professionals working with the French National Reference Center in Paediatric Rheumatology and Inflammatory Diseases

Description

Inclusion Criteria:

  • Health care professionals working with the French National Reference in Center Pediatric Rheumatology and Inflammatory Diseases
  • Professional experiences on the care of chronic musculoskeletal pain

Exclusion Criteria:

- Refusal to participate in the study

Study Plan

This section provides details of the study plan, including how the study is designed and what the study is measuring.

How is the study designed?

Design Details

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure
Measure Description
Time Frame
Qualitative description of the experience of health professionals faced to adolescents consulting for chronic (non-malignant) musculoskeletal pain
Time Frame: 1 day
The data collection will consist in health professionals' interviews. All the content of the interviews will be included in the data analysis. The interviews will contain the deepest experience of these professionals in their confrontation of adolescents who present chronic musculoskeletal pain.
1 day

Collaborators and Investigators

This is where you will find people and organizations involved with this study.

Sponsor

Assistance Publique - Hôpitaux de Paris

Collaborators

URC-CIC Paris Descartes Necker Cochin

Investigators

  • Study Chair: Pierre QUARTIER, MD, PhD, Assistance Publique - Hôpitaux de Paris
  • Study Chair: Jonathan LACHAL, MD, PhD, Assistance Publique - Hôpitaux de Paris

Publications and helpful links

The person responsible for entering information about the study voluntarily provides these publications. These may be about anything related to the study.

General Publications

Helpful Links

Study record dates

These dates track the progress of study record and summary results submissions to ClinicalTrials.gov. Study records and reported results are reviewed by the National Library of Medicine (NLM) to make sure they meet specific quality control standards before being posted on the public website.

Study Major Dates

Study Start (Actual)

September 21, 2017

Primary Completion (Actual)

January 30, 2018

Study Completion (Actual)

January 30, 2018

Study Registration Dates

First Submitted

May 26, 2017

First Submitted That Met QC Criteria

May 26, 2017

First Posted (Actual)

May 31, 2017

Study Record Updates

Last Update Posted (Actual)

November 20, 2025

Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria

November 17, 2025

Last Verified

September 1, 2025

More Information

Terms related to this study

Keywords

Additional Relevant MeSH Terms

Other Study ID Numbers

  • NI16015
  • 2017-A00842-51 (Other Identifier: ANSM)

Plan for Individual participant data (IPD)

Plan to Share Individual Participant Data (IPD)?

NO

Drug and device information, study documents

Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated drug product

No

Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated device product

No

This information was retrieved directly from the website clinicaltrials.gov without any changes. If you have any requests to change, remove or update your study details, please contact register@clinicaltrials.gov. As soon as a change is implemented on clinicaltrials.gov, this will be updated automatically on our website as well.

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