Healthcare Professional Students' Knowledge and Attitudes Towards Chronic Pain Management.

Measuring Healthcare Professional Students Knowledge and Attitudes Towards Chronic Pain Management.

Chronic pain affects from one third to one half of the population in the UK (Fayaz et al, 2016). The cost and burden of chronic pain is significant to health services worldwide. The affects of chronic pain are widespread upon the lives of those affected. Health professionals need to be better equipped than at present to manage pain and current chronic pain management knowledge in healthcare is poor. Briggs et al 2011 described the hours of pain education delivered at undergraduate level as 'woefully inadequate'. The International Association for Study of Pain (IASP) defined curricula for pain education at undergraduate level 6 years ago but current levels of knowledge at undergraduate health professional level are not widely known. This study aims to establish this at the outset of a pre-registration health professional courses and at the end of these courses.

This study aims to identify the baseline knowledge and attitudes of pre-registration healthcare students in Universities throughout UK and Ireland toward chronic pain management. The disciplines targeted are nursing, midwifery, physiotherapy, occupational therapy, diagnostic radiography and paramedics.

It is a cross sectional study that compares attitudes and knowledge of first year and final year pre-registration healthcare students in the UK and Ireland. These parameters are measured using the HC-PAIRS measure and Revised Neurophysiology Questionnaire respectively. In addition anonymous data is collected pertaining to participant characteristics which are institute of study, age, gender, level and discipline of study to enable a comparison between these parameters.

Study Overview

• Status: Completed
• Conditions: Chronic Pain; Knowledge, Attitudes, Practice; Student Education

Detailed Description

Chronic pain is characterised by a protective mechanism of the neuro-immune-endocrine systems potentially exacerbated by loading exposures, conditioning, psychological, socio-economic, lifestyle, comorbid mental health and non-modifiables such as genetics, (O'Sullivan et al 2016). Pain education can be a useful basis for helping patients to manage their symptoms and return to good daily function. However a biomedical approach to chronic pain persists in medical communities, whilst persistent pain populations increase and incidences of opioid addiction are growing secondary to poor pain management. Biomedical models of pain are likely to induce fear avoidant behaviour and exacerbate chronicity (Wertli et al 2014). In order to change the prevailing biomedical approach to chronic pain the International Association for the Study of Pain (IASP) have provided detailed pain curricula content for different medical and allied health professional courses. Briggs et al (2015) found that out of 15 'representative European countries' less than a handful of universities from 3 countries had implemented distinctly identifiable pain education teaching. However they may be other forms of pain education that are taking place in pre-registration healthcare professional education. This study aims to establish the levels of chronic pain management knowledge and attitudes prevail in the UK and Ireland amongst pre-registration healthcare professionals.

• Study Type: Observational
• Enrollment (Actual): 1150

Contacts and Locations

Study Locations

• United Kingdom
  • Middlesbrough, United Kingdom, TS1 3BX
    • Teesside University

Participation Criteria

Eligibility Criteria

• Ages Eligible for Study: 18 years and older (ADULT, OLDER_ADULT)
• Accepts Healthy Volunteers: N/A
• Genders Eligible for Study: All

• Sampling Method: Non-Probability Sample

Study Population

University students in UK and Ireland.

Description

Inclusion Criteria:

- pre-registration healthcare student, BSc or MSc.

Exclusion Criteria:

- post-registration students

Study Plan

How is the study designed?

Number of groups / cohorts

12

Cohorts and Interventions

Group / Cohort
Teesside University; nursing, midwifery, physiotherapy, occupational therapy, diagnostic radiography, paramedics
Glasgow Caledonian University; nursing, midwifery, physiotherapy, occupational therapy, diagnostic radiography, paramedics
Northumbria University; nursing, midwifery, physiotherapy, occupational therapy
University of Nottingham; Physiotherapy, nursing and midwifery
Curtin University; Physiotherapy
Notre Dame University; Physiotherapy
University College Dublin; Physiotherapists
Leeds Beckett University; Physiotherapists
University College Cork; Physiotherapists
Robert Gordon University; OT, Physio, Midwifery, Nursing, Diagnostic radiography
University of Ulster; Physiotherapy
University of Limerick; OT, Physio, Midwifery, Nursing, Diagnostic radiography, paramedic

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
Revised Neurophysiology Quiz	12 point pain knowledge quiz devised originally by Moseley 2003 to assess knowledge of biological mechanisms of pain. Revised and reduced in 2013 by Catley et al. The lowest score is 0 and the highest would be 12 on a scale of 0-12. There are no subscales.	1 day
Health care providers Pain and Impairment Relationship Scale	A 13 question, 7 point Likert scale and a validated questionnaire to assess health care providers' attitudes and beliefs about the relationship between pain and impairment. The scale ranges in outcome from 0-90, higher scores representing a stronger belief in the relationship between chronic pain and disability (a 'worse outcome') and lower scores representing a reduced belief on this relationship thus a 'better outcome'. There are no subscales.	1 day

Secondary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
Biographic data	age in years	1 day
Biographic data (gender)	gender (male/female)	1 day
Biographic data (discipline)	discipline (nursing, midwifery, physiotherapy, occupational therapy, paramedics, diagnostic radiotherapy)	1 day
Biographic data (Degree qualification)	level of study (BSc/MSc)	1 day
Biographic data (stage of study)	Year of study (first or final year)	1 day
Biographic data (Institute)	University of study	1 day

Collaborators and Investigators

• Sponsor: Teesside University
• Collaborators: King's College London; University of Nottingham; Northumbria University; Glasgow Caledonian University; Leeds Beckett University
• Investigators: Principal Investigator: Jagjit Mankelow, MSc, Teesside University

Publications and helpful links

General Publications

• Mankelow J, Ryan CG, Taylor PC, Casey MB, Naisby J, Thompson K, McVeigh JG, Seenan C, Cooper K, Hendrick P, Brown D, Gibson W, Travers M, Kennedy N, O'Riordan C, Martin D. International, multi-disciplinary, cross-section study of pain knowledge and attitudes in nursing, midwifery and allied health professions students. BMC Med Educ. 2022 Jul 15;22(1):547. doi: 10.1186/s12909-022-03488-3.

Study record dates

Study Major Dates

• Study Start (ACTUAL): November 15, 2017
• Primary Completion (ACTUAL): September 30, 2019
• Study Completion (ACTUAL): September 30, 2019

Study Registration Dates

• First Submitted: April 18, 2018
• First Submitted That Met QC Criteria: April 30, 2018
• First Posted (ACTUAL): May 11, 2018

Study Record Updates

• Last Update Posted (ACTUAL): October 15, 2019
• Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria: October 11, 2019
• Last Verified: October 1, 2019

More Information

Terms related to this study

• Additional Relevant MeSH Terms: Pain; Neurologic Manifestations; Chronic Pain
• Other Study ID Numbers: SA 144/17

Drug and device information, study documents

• Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated drug product: No
• Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated device product: No