Online Pain Management Education for Physicians

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The long-term objective of this project is to develop a cost-effective Internet-based education program that will improve the performance of physicians and other health professionals in managing patients with chronic pain. While pain is associated with a number of disease states, chronic pain may have behavioral and social effects that extend beyond the direct health effects of the associated disease. In such cases the underlying disease, e.g. an advanced malignancy, may not be amenable to cure, but the painful consequences may be treatable. Unfortunately, there is considerable evidence that health care professionals consistently undertreat chronic pain. The primary reason for this is thought to be inadequate professional education. We intend to develop an online, problem based, educational program in pain management that will improve physician and other health professional knowledge, attitudes, beliefs, and skills in managing chronic pain. This program will be based on well-documented concepts of adult learning theory and expand on a successful Internet-based educational model. The eventual commercial product will be a multi-hour continuing medical education program that will be sold to physicians and other health professionals via a commercial Internet site and to medical organizations via a robust Internet-based delivery platform. We will also develop a reliable and clinically valid survey tool that can be used to assess the effectiveness of this and other professional education programs in pain management. The research aims of the Phase I study are to refine the learning objectives of the online educational program, develop and validate a survey-based chronic pain education assessment tool based on these objectives, develop a written curriculum on pain management, and subject this curriculum to outside expert review.