Can a Pain Neuroscience Education Lecture Alter Treatment Choices for Chronic Pain in Physician Assistant Students?

Author Info

Adriaan Louw Angela Schmieder Elizabeth Peppin Kevin Farrell Kory Zimney Nicholas Maiers

Corresponding Author

Nicholas Maiers
Physical Therapy Department, Des Moines University, Iowa, USA

A B S T R A C T

Purpose: Pilot study assessing if pain neuroscience education (PNE) can shift treatment choices for patients with chronic pain in Physician Assistants (PA) students. Methods: A convenience sample of PA students (n = 29) attended a 2-hour PNE lecture. Prior to and immediately after the lecture, students completed a questionnaire regarding their beliefs and choices regarding treatments and professionals best suited for patients suffering from chronic pain. Results: Following the PNE lecture, there was a significant shift of decreasing the choice of medical interventions/pharmaceutical use and increasing alternative pain strategy interventions (p = 0.046). Further, non-pharmaceutical treatments shifted towards cognitive and active movement approaches (mindfulness, relaxation, physical therapy, psychology and cognitive behavioural medicine), away from passive treatments (massage therapy and chiropractic). After PNE, PA students were less likely to recommend an orthopedic surgeon to treat chronic pain (p = 0.015). Conclusion: A PNE lecture to PA students is able to decrease pharmaceuticals as first choice in treatment of chronic pain and towards more active, non-pharmaceutical cognitive targeted treatments

Article Info

Article Type

Research Article

Publication history

Received: Mon 27, Jul 2020
Accepted: Thu 06, Aug 2020
Published: Fri 14, Aug 2020

Copyright

© 2023 Nicholas Maiers. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. Hosting by Science Repository.
DOI: 10.31487/j.PDR.2020.02.03