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  • Young people's experiences of persistent musculoskeletal pain, needs, gaps and perceptions about the role of digital technologies to support their co-care: a qualitative study

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Qualitative research
Research
Young people's experiences of persistent musculoskeletal pain, needs, gaps and perceptions about the role of digital technologies to support their co-care: a qualitative study
  1. Helen Slater1,
  2. Joanne E Jordan2,
  3. Jason Chua1,3,
  4. Robert Schütze4,
  5. John D Wark5,
  6. Andrew M Briggs1,5,6
  1. 1School of Physiotherapy and Exercise Science, Curtin University, Perth, Western Australia, Australia
  2. 2HealthSense (Aust) Pty Ltd, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
  3. 3Department of Health, Government of Western Australia, Perth, Western Australia, Australia
  4. 4School of Psychology and Speech Pathology, Curtin University, Perth, Western Australia, Australia
  5. 5Department of Medicine and Bone & Mineral Medicine, University of Melbourne, Royal Melbourne Hospital, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
  6. 6Arthritis and Osteoporosis Victoria, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
  1. Correspondence to Professor Helen Slater; H.Slater{at}curtin.edu.au

Abstract

Objective To investigate young people's experiences of persistent musculoskeletal pain, including care needs and current service gaps as well as perceptions about the role of digital technologies to support their co-care.

Methods A qualitative study employing two independent data collection modes: in-depth individual semistructured interviews and focus groups.

Setting Community settings throughout Australia.

Participants Participants were included if they had experienced persistent musculoskeletal pain of >3-month duration with an average of ≥3 on the visual analogue scale over the preceding 3 months, including non-specific conditions (eg, low back pain) and specific conditions (eg, juvenile idiopathic arthritis and other systemic arthritides), with/without pre-existing or current diagnosed mental health conditions. 23 young people (87.0% women; mean (SD) age: 20.8 (2.4) years) from across 6 Australian jurisdictions participated. Almost two-thirds of participants with persistent musculoskeletal pain reported comorbid mental health conditions.

Main outcome measures Inductive and deductive approaches to analyse and derive key themes from verbatim transcripts.

Results Participants described their daily experiences of living with persistent musculoskeletal pain, their fears and the challenges imposed by the invisibility of pain, and the two-way relationship between their pain and mental well-being. A lack of relevant and accessible information and resources tailored to young people's unique needs, integrated and youth-relevant healthcare services and adequately skilled healthcare practitioners were identified as key care gaps. Participants strongly advocated for the use of digital technologies to improve access to age-appropriate resources and support for co-care.

Conclusions Young people living with persistent musculoskeletal pain described the absence of age-appropriate pain services and clearly articulated their perceptions on the role of, and opportunities provided by, digital technologies to connect with and support improved pain healthcare. Innovative and digitally-enabled models of pain care are likely to be helpful for this group.

  • PAIN MANAGEMENT

This is an Open Access article distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/

https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjopen-2016-014007

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    Footnotes

    • Funding Funding to undertake this study was provided by partnership grants awarded by Arthritis and Osteoporosis Victoria and Arthritis and Osteoporosis Western Australia, with in kind support from Curtin University and the Department of Health (Government of Western Australia). The funding bodies did not influence decisions related to data collection, analysis, interpretation or submission of the manuscript for publication.

    • Competing interests AMB reports grants from Arthritis and Osteoporosis Victoria, grants from Arthritis and Osteoporosis WA, during the conduct of the study; AMB was a salaried employee of Arthritis and Osteoporosis Victoria at the time the study was undertaken; JEJ declares personal research fees from Curtin University, during the conduct of the study; JC declares personal research fees from Curtin University, during the conduct of the study.

    • Ethics approval This study was approved by the Curtin University Human Research Ethics Committee, Perth, Australia.

    • Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; externally peer reviewed.

    • Data sharing statement Extracts from this data set may be made available by emailing the corresponding authors.