Article

Purpose. To explore the questions that community-dwelling individuals with a
traumatic spinal cord injury (SCI) have regarding their chronic pain and to
identify their preferred methods of acquiring this information. Method.
Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 12 individuals experiencing
SCI-related chronic pain. Qualitative content analysis was used to identify
participants' questions about their pain and to organise them according to
emergent themes. Results. Six themes pertaining to chronic pain were identified.
These included: (1) cause, (2) communication, (3) expectation, (4) getting
information, (5) management and (6) other's experience with chronic pain.
Participants described using a variety of sources to obtain information about
chronic pain including health care providers, other SCI-consumers and the
Internet. Participants preferred to have chronic pain information available to
them on an as needed basis. Conclusions. Individuals with SCI have numerous
questions about their chronic pain and use a variety of information sources to
answer them. Many are dissatisfied with the level of knowledge that family
physicians have about SCI-related chronic pain.
This study provides valuable
information from the consumer's perspective, which can be used to develop
interventions to help health care professionals and consumers manage SCI-related chronic pain.

Langue : ANGLAIS