134 research outputs found
Standardising the Collection of Socio-Demographic Data in Pain Research
No full textWe begin this letter by acknowledging the European Journal of Pain's commitment to promoting inclusion, diversity and equity in pain research and upholding the pain field to rigorous standards of integrity in research conduct (Palermo et al. 2025; Palermo et al. 2023). In this correspondence, we draw the attention of your readership to the recent publication of our author group in Lancet EClinicalMedicine: ‘Identifying Social Factors that Stratify Health Opportunities and Outcomes (ISSHOOs) in pain research: Consensus recommendations for the collection and reporting of equity-relevant data’ (Karran et al. 2025b). This manuscript details globally relevant, consensus-derived recommendations for use in human pain research that are closely aligned with the principles and values your journals promote.Emma L. Karran, Aidan G. Cashin, Alessandro Chiarotto, Saurab Sharma, Trevor Barker, Mark A. Boyd, Lara J. Maxwell, Vina Mohabir, Jennifer Petkovic, Peter Tugwell, G. Lorimer Mosele
Improving pain assessment, management, and research in low-income countries: An example of Nepal
Full text linkPain is a global public health problem resulting from complex interactions of multiple biopsychosocial factors. Most published pain research comes from developed countries using samples from western countries; developing countries continue to face challenges in conducting high-quality pain research. This thesis illustrates a systematic approach to planning a pain research programme in a (resource-limited) country, using my country of Nepal as an example. It also demonstrates ways to overcome preliminary barriers to conducting high-quality pain research in developing countries.
This thesis has 10 chapters and includes ten manuscripts published in international peer-reviewed journals. Chapter 1 is a general introduction providing an overview of pain and includes the aims of the thesis. Chapter 2 is a scoping review of published pain research conducted in Nepal (last search updated in November 2018) with an aim to describe the findings from this research, identify research gaps, and inform pain research priorities. This chapter also informed the need for Chapters 5 through 9. Chapter 3 is a systematic review aiming to explore between-country and -language differences in chronic pain beliefs, coping, and catastrophizing. Chapter 4 prepares the readers for the four chapters that follow (Chapter 5 – 8) that describe the translation, cross-cultural adaptation, and validation of five patient-reported outcome measures (PROMs) that assesses four domains into Nepalese that can be used in future pain research in Nepal. These domains were identified as important domains to measure in individuals with pain in Nepal based on the recommendations of the core outcome sets of several pain conditions. Instruments translated to assess these domains were the Numerical Pain Rating Scale (NPRS), the Patient-Specific Functional Scale (PSFS), the Pain Catastrophizing Scale (PCS), the Connor Davidson Resilience Scale (CDRISC), and the Global Rating of Change (GRoC). Chapter 9 describes the development of pain education materials in Nepali and the results of a feasibility clinical trial that aimed to explore if conducting a high-quality clinical trial is feasible in the Nepalese healthcare system. The final chapter, Chapter 10 is a general discussion of the thesis with implications of the studies on pain policy, future research, and clinical practice in Nepal, as well as the overall significance, recommendations, strengths, and limitations of the work presented.
In summary, the current thesis identified two important knowledge gaps in the current pain literature in Nepal: (1) the general unavailability of PROMs that are in the Nepali language and that could be used to assess pain and other important pain-related domains significant to advancing scientific knowledge and (2) the biopsychosocial management of pain in Nepal. The research reported here addressed these knowledge gaps by translating and cross-culturally adapting and validating 5 PROMs that can be used in the assessment of pain conditions, and developing a credible and acceptable pain education programme in Nepali. Moreover, the systematic review found important country and language effects on the beliefs people have and the response they engage in to cope with pain, suggesting that these factors may be considered when developing treatments for and adapting treatments to individuals living in a specific country or speaking a specific language. Finally, the results indicate that a definitive high-quality clinical trial to investigate the effectiveness of the pain education programme is feasible and warranted in Nepal
It is time to take a broader equity lens to highlight health inequalities in people with pain
Full text linkHealth equity means that ‘everyone has a fair and just opportunity to be as healthy as possible’. Although there is widespread recognition that this aspiration must drive efforts to improve the health of individuals and communities, leading medical journals have recently drawn attention to ongoing shortcomings in health research. Typically, the characteristics of participants involved in research do not represent the broad range of sociodemographic characteristics of patients encountered in everyday practice, and under-representation of people who experience disadvantage and marginalisation is commonplace. It is widely recognised that a major contributor to health inequities are the social determinants of health, that is, ‘the conditions in which people are born, grow, live, work and age, and the fundamental drivers of these conditions: the distribution of power; money; and resources’. Developing a contemporary understanding of how the social determinants of health relate to pain experiences and outcomes appears timely and important, and we consider it to be a crucial step towards improving health equity for people with pain.Emma L. Karran, Aidan G. Cashin, Trevor Barker, Mark A. Boyd, Alessandro Chiarotto, Vina Mohabir, Jennifer Petkovic, Saurab Sharma, Peter Tugwell, G. Lorimer Mosele
Dataset for "The Physiotherapy Evidence Database (PEDro) has better free full-text access than PubMed: an observational study"
No full textThis is the dataset for the article:
Moseley AM, Fernández Hernando D, Saragiotto BT, Sharma S, Maharjan E, Elkins MR
The Physiotherapy Evidence Database (PEDro) has better free full-text access than PubMed: an observational study
Brazilian Journal of Physical Therapy; accepted for publication on 27 December 2021Descriptive stud
Standardising socio-demographic data collection in pain research: Introducing consensus recommendations for a minimum dataset
No full textThe ‘ISSHOOs (Identifying Social factors that Stratify Health Opportunities and Outcomes) in pain research’ project has developed consensus-derived recommendations to address the inadequacy and inconsistency of sociodemographic data collection and reporting in human adult pain research. The recently published recommendations offer a highly useful, globally relevant and adaptable resource that operationalises the collection of a minimum dataset of important equity-relevant information. In this Commentary we provide a brief overview of the ISSHOOs project and the resulting recommendations – comprising Set A: the ‘minimum dataset’ and Set B: an extended dataset of optional (equity-relevant) items; and we draw attention to a separate ‘explanation and elaboration’ manuscript. We discuss the implications of routine adoption of the ISSHOOs recommendations, including limitations, implementation considerations, and the potential for both benefits and harms to be associated with their use. The overarching goal of the ISSHOOs Collaboration is to prompt a small but widespread shift in research practice that promotes research transparency, integrity and value and advances health equity for people with pain.Emma L. Karran, Aidan G. Cashin, Alessandro Chiarotto, Saurab Sharma, Trevor Barker, Mark A. Boyd, Lara J. Maxwell, Vina Mohabir, Jennifer Petkovic, Peter Tugwell, G. Lorimer Mosele
Nonenzymetic glucose sensing using carbon functionalized carbon doped ZnO nanorod arrays
No full textCross-cultural Adaptation and Validation of the Nepali Translation of the Patient-Specific Functional Scale
No full textEnhancement of UV photodetector properties of ZnO nanorods/PEDOT:PSS Schottky junction by NGQD sensitization along with conductivity improvement of PEDOT:PSS by DMSO additive
No full textWords that describe chronic musculoskeletal pain: implications for assessing pain quality across cultures
No full textSaurab Sharma,1 Anupa Pathak,2 Mark P Jensen3 1Department of Physiotherapy, Kathmandu University School of Medical Sciences, Dhulikhel Hospital Kathmandu University Hospital, Dhulikhel, 2Department of Physiotherapy, Kathmandu University School of Medical Sciences, Dhulikhel, Kavre, Nepal; 3Department of Rehabilitation Medicine, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA Background: People from different cultures who speak different languages may experience pain differently. This possible variability has important implications for evaluating the validity of pain quality measures that are directly translated into different languages without cultural adaptations. The aim of this study was to evaluate the impact of language and culture on the validity of pain quality measures by comparing the words that individuals with chronic pain from Nepal use to describe their pain with those used by patients from the USA. Methods: A total of 101 individuals with chronic musculoskeletal pain in Nepal were asked to describe their pain. The rates of the different pain descriptor domains and phrases used by the Nepali sample were then compared to the published rates of descriptors used by patients from the USA. The content validity of commonly used measures for assessing pain quality was then evaluated. Results: While there was some similarity between patients from Nepal and the USA in how they describe pain, there were also important differences, especially in how pain quality was described. For example, many patients from Nepal used metaphors to describe their pain. Also, the patients from Nepal often used a category of pain descriptor – which describes a physical state – not used by patients from the USA. Only the original McGill Pain Questionnaire was found to have content validity for assessing pain quality in patients from Nepal, although other existing pain quality measures could be adapted to be content valid by adding one or two additional descriptors, depending on the measure in question. Conclusion: The findings indicate that direct translations of measures that are developed using samples of patients from one country or culture are not necessarily content valid for use in other countries or cultures; some adaptations may be required in order for such measures to be most useful in new language and culture. Keywords: pain quality, pain assessment, chronic pain, cross-cultural adaptation, musculoskeletal pai
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