Abstract
Abstract
Background
Adequate pain education of health professionals is fundamental in the management of pain. Although an interprofessional consensus of core competencies for health professional pre-licensure education in pain have been established, the degree of their incorporation into physical therapy curriculum varies greatly. The purpose of this study was to 1. Assess students’ pain knowledge and their attitudes and beliefs in a pre-licensure physical therapy curriculum using a cross sectional comparison, and 2. Using a sub-sample of this population, we evaluated if an elective course on pain based on International Association for the Study of Pain (IASP) guidelines had an effect on students’ knowledge and beliefs.
Methods
The Neurophysiology of Pain Questionnaire (NPQ) and the Pain Attitudes and Beliefs Scale for Physiotherapists (PABS-PT) was completed by first semester (n = 72) and final (n = 56) semester doctor of physical therapy (DPT) students. Final semester students completed surveys before and after participation in an elective course of their choosing (pain elective (PE) or other electives (OE)).
Results
Participation rate was > 90% (n = 128/140). We found mean differences in NPQ scores between final semester (3rd year) students (76.9%) compared to first semester students (64%), p < 0.001. Third year students showed a mean difference on PABS-PT subscales, showing decreased biomedical (p < 0.001) and increased biopsychosocial (p = 0.005) scores compared to first semester students. Only final semester students that participated in the PE improved their NPQ scores (from 79 to 86%, p < 0.001) and demonstrated a significant change in the expected direction on PABS-PT subscales with increased biopsychosocial (p = 0.003) and decreased biological scores (p < 0.001).
Conclusions
We suggest that although core pre-licensure DPT education improves students’ pain knowledge and changes their attitudes towards pain, taking a IASP based pain elective continues to improve their pain neurobiology knowledge and also further changes their attitudes and beliefs towards pain. Therefore, a stand-alone course on pain in addition to pain concepts threaded throughout the curriculum may help ensure that entry-level DPT students are better prepared to effectively work with patients with pain.
Publisher
Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Subject
Education,General Medicine
Reference34 articles.
1. Committee on Advancing Pain Research C, and Education. Relieving Pain in America: A Blueprint for Transforming Prevention, Care, Education, and Research.: Institute of Medicine (US) Committee on Advancing Pain Research, Care, and Education, vol. 2011. Washington (DC): National Academies Press (US); 2011. Available from:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22553896
2. Cheatle MD, O’Brien CP. Opioid therapy in patients with chronic noncancer pain: diagnostic and clinical challenges. Adv Psychosom Med. 2011;30:61–91.
3. Dowell D, Haegerich TM, Chou R. CDC guideline for prescribing opioids for chronic pain - United States, 2016. MMWR Recomm Rep. 2016;65(1):1–49.
4. Pendergast J, Kliethermes SA, Freburger JK, Duffy PA. A comparison of health care use for physician-referred and self-referred episodes of outpatient physical therapy. Health Serv Res. 2012;47(2):633–54.
5. Panagopoulos J, Magnussen JS, Hush J, Maher CG, Crites-Battie M, Jarvik JG, et al. Prospective comparison of changes in lumbar spine MRI findings over time between individuals with acute low Back pain and controls: an exploratory study. AJNR Am J Neuroradiol. 2017;38(9):1826–32.
Cited by
17 articles.
订阅此论文施引文献
订阅此论文施引文献,注册后可以免费订阅5篇论文的施引文献,订阅后可以查看论文全部施引文献