The EFIC Education Committee are examining the provision of compulsory pain education and availability of postgraduate pain specialisation options for physicians, physiotherapists, nurses, and psychologists across Europe. This study is an update and extension of the 2015 APPEAL study which examined inclusion of pain in medical curricula in 15 European countries. See publication here.

In the current study, quality of pain education will be bench-marked against the four European Pain Federation Curricula for pain medicine, pain physiotherapy, pain psychology, and pain nursing to identify gaps in learning.

Steering Committee

The study is led by Dr Mary O’Keeffe (EFIC Research Projects Advisor), in close collaboration with Nathan Skidmore (EFIC Research Assistant). Steering Committee members are: Professor Harriet Wittink, Associate Professor Brana Fullen, Professor Bart Morlion, Professor Ed Keogh, Felicia Cox, Dr Andreas Kopf, and Professor Frank Huygen.

Methodology

1. A literature review to understand provision of pain education across to inform our survey
2. A cross-sectional online survey across Europe to seek curriculum information from medical, physiotherapy, nursing, and psychology schools across Europe.
3. Focus groups and interviews with a purposive sample of survey respondents based on inclusion of pain in curricula, key organisations and opinion leaders in medical, physiotherapy, psychology and nursing education, and EFIC councillors
4. Consensus meetings/workshops with the Steering Committee (+input of pain forum organisations leadership)

Funding

The European Pain Federation EFIC received an unrestricted one-time grant of €32.000,- by Grünenthal for this study.