Confidence of Practitioners to Support Self-management of Pain: A Multidisciplinary Survey

Background: Supported self-management is an important component of management for persistent pain according to current recommendations and guidelines. However, it is unclear whether staff from differing disciplines who may be in early contact with people with established or developing persistent pain are confident to introduce and support self-management for this patient group.

Aim: To determine the confidence of staff across professional disciplines to introduce and support self-management.

Design And Setting: Cross-sectional online survey.

Methods: Charts were constructed to represent information on professional grouping, prior training in self-management and confidence in supporting key components of self-management for persistent pain. Analysis of variance was used to test for differences between groups.

Results: Overall, 165 practitioners reported confidence to support self-management below the midpoint of a ten-point scale and 93 above. There were few differences between different professions apart from in explaining pain (f = 6.879 < .001), managing activity levels (f = 6.340 < .001) and supporting healthy habits (f = 4.700, = .001) in which physiotherapists expressed higher confidence than other professional groups. There was no difference in confidence expressed between staff who had or had not received previous training in self-management (f = 1.357, = .233).

Conclusions: Many front-line staff who might be expected to introduce and deliver self-management support for persistent pain lack the confidence and skills to do so. This is consistent with a known lack of education about pain across disciplinary boundaries in primary and community-based care. In order to meet treatment priorities for persistent pain there is an urgent need to upskill the workforce by providing access to good quality training and resources.