Pain Management Panel - engagement: phase 2 report

1. Introduction

This report presents findings from a series of consultations with the Scottish Government Chronic Pain Lived Experience Panel. These discussions formed the second phase of engagement with the panel; a report on the first phase was published in November 2022.

Context

In August 2022, The Lines Between were commissioned by the Scottish Government to recruit, support and engage with a cross-section of people with chronic pain across Scotland to inform the development of the Pain Management Framework and Implementation Plan. With support from a research recruitment partner, a panel of 16 individuals was assembled.

Further information on the context for this project is contained in the Phase 1 report.

Phase 2 engagement

There were two primary aims for the second phase of engagement with the panel:

1) To explore the panel's experiences of searching for information about chronic pain, such as what kind of information they search for, which sources they use and why they use them.

2) To gather user feedback on the NHS Inform chronic pain webpage and self-help guide.

The panel were consulted twice throughout November 2022. The first engagement was an open discussion exploring information needs, followed by a brief task whereby panel members were asked to access the NHS Inform chronic pain website and provide feedback on the design, content and accessibility of the page.

After the first session, panel members were asked to work through the NHS chronic pain self-help guide in their own time. Once panel members had completed this task, they took part in a second session, and provided feedback on the guide.

Demographics of the panel

The demographics of the panel are shown in Figure 1.

In order to increase the impact and address inequalities facing people with chronic pain, the Scottish Government sought to increase the range and diversity of voices of lived experience of chronic pain to inform implementation of the Framework. For this project, the Scottish Government were keen to gather feedback from seldom heard voices within the chronic pain community, i.e. individuals who have not been involved in previous research or advocacy work related to chronic pain.

More detail on the recruitment of the panel is available in Report 1.

Figure 1: Panel demographics

Gender

• 44% male (7)
• 56% female (9)

Age

• 19% aged 18-30 (3)
• 31% aged 31-54 (5)
• 50% aged 55+ (8)

Ethnicity

• 81% White British (13)
• 13% mixed/multiple ethnic groups (2)
• 6% Asian – Pakistani (1)

Location

• 25% Central Scotland (4)
• 44% Urban/City (7)
• 19% Rural (3)
• 13% Remote rural (2)

Socio-economic status

• 50% B-C1 socioeconomic group (8)
• 50% C2-E socioeconomic group (8)

Impact of pain^[1]

• 19% No impact (3)
• 44% Little/low impact (7)
• 38% High impact (6)

Report structure

This report is structured as follows:

• Chapter 2 explores the panel's experiences of seeking information about chronic pain
• Chapter 3 presents the panel's feedback on the NHS Inform chronic pain website
• Chapter 4 contains feedback on the NHS Inform chronic pain self-help guide
• Chapter 5 offers conclusions on this project.