Chronic Pain, Widespread clinical trials

Supporting Self-management of Chronic Pain

Does the Navigator Tool Intervention improve communication regarding self-management during consultations between healthcare professionals and people with chronic pain? As there is usually no cure for chronic pain, healthcare professionals are increasingly turning to methods of treatment that emphasise management of symptoms rather than elimination of pain. However, as Pain Concern's previous research has shown, there are several barriers to self-management that both healthcare professionals and people with pain face in their consultations in primary care. The Navigator Tool Intervention has been designed to overcome the majority of these barriers through improving the quality of communication regarding self-management during consultations. In line with the House of Care Model, where care relies on engaged and informed patients, healthcare professionals committed to partnership working, and organisational processes that support this, our intervention prepares both the healthcare professionals and patients for their consultation. By providing a training session for the healthcare professionals in how supported self-management can be brought into the consultation room, and by providing the patients with a paper-based tool that allows them to organise their concerns and questions prior to the consultation, the intervention aims to steer the conversation toward the aspects that the patient needs to discuss in order to better manage their pain. This study will launch the intervention and evaluate its effectiveness in improving self-management support through conversation. It will be launched over a 3 month period in 4 sites across Scotland; 24 patients will be using the tool with a trained healthcare professional and 24 will act as a control group, receiving standard care without the tool. Questionnaires assessing the satisfaction with the consultation(s) and communication, as well as confidence in managing one's pain, will be analysed and compared between the two groups. Interviews will be carried out with healthcare professionals and a sample of patients having used the tool to gain a deeper understanding of the usefulness of the intervention and how it may be improved in the future.