De-STRESS pain
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Developing a patient-centred evidence-based intervention to address distress in the context of chronic MSK pain
IRAS ID
291138
Contact name
Tamar Pincus
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
Royal Holloway, University of London
Duration of Study in the UK
0 years, 11 months, 31 days
Research summary
People with chronic musculoskeletal pain often feel low, exhausted, irritable and have trouble to do the things they usually do. This may be identified by GPs as depression, and therefore patients are prescribed anti-depressants. However, the distress related to chronic musculoskeletal pain is different from clinical depression - many patients don’t want antidepressants, and don't improve after being prescribed them. This project aims to understand pain-related distress in order to advise doctors how to identify it better and avoid mistaking it for clinical depression. This can be used for the design of a future intervention
This will be done through semi-structured interview methods with patients and GPs in the West Midlands, Southampton, Surrey and London. People with musculoskeletal pain will be invited to take part through two methods i) advertisements/posters in public places and social media; ii) GP registers of people with MSK pain who have consulted in the last six months. GPs will be recruited through participating practices via email.
The semi-structured interviews with participants will be conducted either face-to-face in a location preferred to the participant, over the telephone or using virtual software (e.g. Microsoft Teams) and will last roughly an hour. Informed consent will be gained prior to the interview. Around 25 people with chronic MSK pain and 20 GPs will be interviewed. Data will be analysed thematically.
REC name
South East Scotland REC 01
REC reference
21/SS/0033
Date of REC Opinion
29 Apr 2021
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion