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Physician perspectives on chronic pain management: barriers and the use of eHealth in the COVID-19 era
BACKGROUND: Chronic pain is a highly prevalent and disabling condition which is often undertreated and poorly managed in the community. The emergence of COVID-19 has further complicated pain care, with an increased prevalence of chronic pain and mental health comorbidities, and burnout among physici...
Autores principales: | , , , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
BioMed Central
2023
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10588239/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37864210 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12913-023-10157-8 |
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author | Kaseweter, Kimberley Nazemi, Mark Gregoire, Nina Louw, W. Francois Walsh, Zach Holtzman, Susan |
author_facet | Kaseweter, Kimberley Nazemi, Mark Gregoire, Nina Louw, W. Francois Walsh, Zach Holtzman, Susan |
author_sort | Kaseweter, Kimberley |
collection | PubMed |
description | BACKGROUND: Chronic pain is a highly prevalent and disabling condition which is often undertreated and poorly managed in the community. The emergence of COVID-19 has further complicated pain care, with an increased prevalence of chronic pain and mental health comorbidities, and burnout among physicians. While the pandemic has led to a dramatic increase in virtual health care visits, the uptake of a broader range of eHealth technologies remains unclear. The present study sought to better understand physicians’ current needs and barriers in providing effective pain care within the context of COVID-19, as well as gauge current use, interest, and ongoing barriers to eHealth implementation. METHODS: A total of 100 practicing physicians in British Columbia, Canada, completed a brief online survey. RESULTS: The sample was comprised of physicians practicing in rural and urban areas (rural = 48%, urban = 42%; both = 10%), with the majority (72%) working in family practice. The most prominent perceived barriers to providing chronic pain care were a lack of interdisciplinary treatment and allied health care for patients, challenges related to opioid prescribing and management, and a lack of time to manage the complexities of chronic pain. Moreover, despite expressing considerable interest in eHealth for chronic pain management (82%), low adoption rates were observed for several technologies. Specifically, only a small percentage of the sample reported using eHealth for the collection of intake data (21%), patient-reported outcomes (14%), and remote patient monitoring (26%). The most common perceived barriers to implementation were cost, complexity, and unfamiliarity with available options. CONCLUSIONS: Findings provide insight into physicians’ ongoing needs and barriers in providing effective pain management during the COVID-19 pandemic. Despite the potential for eHealth technologies to help address barriers in pain care, and strong interest from physicians, enhanced useability, education and training, and funding are likely required to achieve successful implementation of a broader range of eHealth technologies in the future. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-10588239 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2023 |
publisher | BioMed Central |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-105882392023-10-21 Physician perspectives on chronic pain management: barriers and the use of eHealth in the COVID-19 era Kaseweter, Kimberley Nazemi, Mark Gregoire, Nina Louw, W. Francois Walsh, Zach Holtzman, Susan BMC Health Serv Res Research BACKGROUND: Chronic pain is a highly prevalent and disabling condition which is often undertreated and poorly managed in the community. The emergence of COVID-19 has further complicated pain care, with an increased prevalence of chronic pain and mental health comorbidities, and burnout among physicians. While the pandemic has led to a dramatic increase in virtual health care visits, the uptake of a broader range of eHealth technologies remains unclear. The present study sought to better understand physicians’ current needs and barriers in providing effective pain care within the context of COVID-19, as well as gauge current use, interest, and ongoing barriers to eHealth implementation. METHODS: A total of 100 practicing physicians in British Columbia, Canada, completed a brief online survey. RESULTS: The sample was comprised of physicians practicing in rural and urban areas (rural = 48%, urban = 42%; both = 10%), with the majority (72%) working in family practice. The most prominent perceived barriers to providing chronic pain care were a lack of interdisciplinary treatment and allied health care for patients, challenges related to opioid prescribing and management, and a lack of time to manage the complexities of chronic pain. Moreover, despite expressing considerable interest in eHealth for chronic pain management (82%), low adoption rates were observed for several technologies. Specifically, only a small percentage of the sample reported using eHealth for the collection of intake data (21%), patient-reported outcomes (14%), and remote patient monitoring (26%). The most common perceived barriers to implementation were cost, complexity, and unfamiliarity with available options. CONCLUSIONS: Findings provide insight into physicians’ ongoing needs and barriers in providing effective pain management during the COVID-19 pandemic. Despite the potential for eHealth technologies to help address barriers in pain care, and strong interest from physicians, enhanced useability, education and training, and funding are likely required to achieve successful implementation of a broader range of eHealth technologies in the future. BioMed Central 2023-10-20 /pmc/articles/PMC10588239/ /pubmed/37864210 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12913-023-10157-8 Text en © The Author(s) 2023 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) . The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) ) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated in a credit line to the data. |
spellingShingle | Research Kaseweter, Kimberley Nazemi, Mark Gregoire, Nina Louw, W. Francois Walsh, Zach Holtzman, Susan Physician perspectives on chronic pain management: barriers and the use of eHealth in the COVID-19 era |
title | Physician perspectives on chronic pain management: barriers and the use of eHealth in the COVID-19 era |
title_full | Physician perspectives on chronic pain management: barriers and the use of eHealth in the COVID-19 era |
title_fullStr | Physician perspectives on chronic pain management: barriers and the use of eHealth in the COVID-19 era |
title_full_unstemmed | Physician perspectives on chronic pain management: barriers and the use of eHealth in the COVID-19 era |
title_short | Physician perspectives on chronic pain management: barriers and the use of eHealth in the COVID-19 era |
title_sort | physician perspectives on chronic pain management: barriers and the use of ehealth in the covid-19 era |
topic | Research |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10588239/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37864210 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12913-023-10157-8 |
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