QUantifying the Impact of Chronic pain on engagement in paid worK
Research type
Research Study
Full title
QUantifying the Impact of Chronic pain on engagement in paid worK: Workpackage 2 and 3
IRAS ID
309539
Contact name
Gary John Macfarlane
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
University of Aberdeen and NHS Grampian Foresterhill AB25 2ZD
Duration of Study in the UK
1 years, 11 months, 31 days
Research summary
Chronic pain has many causes and is often musculoskeletal in nature. It affects the kind of work people do and how they engage in it - from impacting how much work one can do on a day-to-day basis, to long-term career choices. However, there is currently no standard questionnaire that can fully explore and measure the many different impacts of chronic pain on people’s ability to work.
Existing questionnaires assume people have one job and are contracted to work a certain number of hours every week, and do not ask about the different ways pain might affect work. We aim to develop a questionnaire that can be used to assess the many different ways in which chronic pain affects work ability, taking into account modern ways of working (such as holding several part-time jobs, having "zero hours" contracts or combining employment with self-employment). By doing this we aim to create an instrument that can be used in future studies to assess the impacts of chronic pain on working life in a variety of contexts.
Within this project, Workpackage 2 aims to understand the key functional impacts of chronic pain on work ability. We will invite individuals with chronic pain and other key stakeholder groups to a series of focus groups to understand from their perspectives, the key impacts of chronic pain on work ability. Subsequently, Workpackage 3 aims to evaluate the performance of a newly developed instrument which will aim to assess the key impacts of chronic pain on work. We will invite people with chronic pain from clinical, general population (as needed) and work settings to complete the new instrument and to provide feedback on it.REC name
East of England - Essex Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
22/EE/0095
Date of REC Opinion
28 Apr 2022
REC opinion
Favourable Opinion