Pilot trial of Individual Placement Support and chronic pain
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Testing the feasibility of a randomised controlled trial of Individualised Placement Support for people with unemployment due to chronic pain
IRAS ID
226125
Contact name
Karen Walker-Bone
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
University of Southampton
ISRCTN Number
ISRCTN30094062
Duration of Study in the UK
1 years, 6 months, 29 days
Research summary
Chronic pain (pain that persists over months or years and fails to respond to usual pain care) is a major public health problem and is linked with mental illness, unemployment and poor quality of life. It is one of the major reasons for preventing people from working, has a marked impact on the individual, their family, health care providers and society.
Individualised Placement Support (IPS) is a successful approach to helping people with severe mental health conditions back to work. It involves trained Employment Support Workers (ESWs) who support an individual using a variety of techniques (including skills training, counselling and health support) with an emphasis on early funded placement into a workplace.
We have been commissioned by the National Institute for Healthcare Research to conduct preliminary research to investigate the feasibility of conducting a randomised controlled trial (RCT) to determine whether IPS offers health benefits to people unemployed with chronic pain. In phase I, we have successfully conducted qualitative work to understand more about IPS from an individual, support worker and primary care perspective. We now propose to continue this feasibility work and conduct a 'dummy' randomised controlled pilot trial of a maximum of 100 individuals, unemployed and with chronic pain, randomising to either IPS with the City Council or Treatment As Usual (meeting with study coordinator and information provided in a booklet form). We will collect information using questionnaires at baseline and at 3,6 and 12 months after recruitment to the study. We aim to measure participation, engagement of individuals, adherence to the study protocol, rates of attrition, and acceptability of randomisation. Following the pilot trial, we will conduct further qualitative interviews to evaluate the trial and lessons learned from the perspectives of patients, employers, ESWs and local health service providers.
REC name
South Central - Hampshire A Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
17/SC/0398
Date of REC Opinion
11 Aug 2017
REC opinion
Favourable Opinion