The IASP pain curriculum for undergraduate allied health professionals: educators defining competence level using Dublin descriptors

BACKGROUND: Improving pain education for undergraduate health professionals is hampered by lacking shared education outcomes. This study describes how educators and pain experts operationalize content and competency levels deemed necessary for a undergraduate pain education core curriculum for health professionals (physical and occupational therapists, nurses, psychologists). METHODS: Educators and experts on pain and pain education gave their opinion on content and competency level for each individual item of the International Association for the Study of Pain (IASP) inter professional curriculum. Participants decided whether or not to include each item in the undergraduate curriculum. Items were included when > 70% of the respondents agreed. The required competency for each item was rated using ordinal Dublin Descriptors. RESULTS: Overall, 22 experts rated the curriculum, with > 70% agreement on inclusion on 62% of the IASP items. Within the IASP domain ‘Multidimensional nature of pain’ there was full agreement on the inclusion of 12 items. ‘Ethics’ was considered less important with only 1 item deemed necessary. There is a high number of items selected within the domains ‘Pain Assessment and measurement’ (78%) and ‘Management of Pain’ (74%). Considerably less items were chosen in the domain ‘Clinical Conditions’ (41%). For most items the median required skills and competency level was either Knowledge and Understanding, or Applying Knowledge and Understanding. CONCLUSION: Overall, educators and experts in pain agreed on content and competency levels for an undergraduate pain curriculum based on the IASP. Defining a shared competency level will help improve definition of education outcome.