Rural health research is exploring a new way to help young people better understand pain, with a large Australian study set to test whether pain education delivered in schools can improve health knowledge among students. The protocol paper was co-authored by Professor Chris Williams as part of the research team and has been published in Contemporary Clinical Trials.
The article, “Pain Smart: Integrating pain education and individualised support for adolescents with pain at schools. Protocol for a cluster randomised controlled trial”, outlines the design of the Pain Smart clinical trial, which will involve 30 secondary schools across NSW.
Chronic pain affects many adolescents and can have a significant impact on daily life, school attendance and wellbeing. Despite this, there are few school-based programs designed to help students understand what pain is and how it works.
The Pain Smart program aims to address that gap through a curriculum-aligned education module for students in Years 7 to 10. The program includes three classroom lessons based on the biopsychosocial understanding of pain, training for teachers and resources for caregivers.
Schools participating in the study will be randomly assigned to either deliver the Pain Smart program or continue with their usual activities. Students will complete online surveys before the program begins and again three and twelve months later.
Researchers will assess whether the program improves students’ understanding of pain and explore how acceptable, appropriate and practical it is for schools to deliver. The findings will help determine whether school-based pain education should be implemented more broadly and guide future improvements to pain education programs for young people.
By bringing health education into the classroom, the study is seeking to build knowledge and skills that could support adolescents to better understand and respond to pain throughout their lives.
