Liaison Psychiatry Service, Department of Psychiatry, Lausanne University Hospital, Lausanne, Switzerland.
Institute of Social Sciences, Faculty of Social and Political Sciences, University of Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland.
Front Public Health. 2021 Nov 3;9:764584. doi: 10.3389/fpubh.2021.764584. eCollection 2021.
A lack of social relations appears to impact on health and life expectancy among the older persons. The quality and diversity of social relations are correlated with good health and well-being in later life. Chronic pain is a crucial issue in aging population. Effective communication between the older persons with chronic pain, their relatives and the actors of the healthcare system facilitates the management of this condition. Studies on communication in later life generally do not consider the older persons' social network as a whole, focusing only a specific segment (e.g., family or medical staff). This lack of scientific data prevents the actors of the healthcare system from offering solutions to bridge clinically relevant communication gaps. As a consequence, our study has three objectives: (1) to identify how the older persons perceive communication about chronic pain with their social network; (2) to identify their unmet communication needs; (3) to develop recommendations that improve communication about chronic pain in later life. The study will be divided into two phases. The first phase will meet objectives 1 and 2. It will involve individual interviews with about 50 people over 75 years old suffering from chronic pain and without major cognitive or auditory troubles. In this phase, we will apply a multi-layered analysis. We will map the older persons' personal network and identify their communication practices and needs, by combining content and discourse analysis with social network theories. The second phase of the study will aim at recommendations based on the results of the first phase (objective 3). It will require focus groups with different sets of stakeholders (older persons, relative caregivers, health professionals, decision-makers). In the second phase, we will use content analysis to pinpoint the concerns and suggestions for action. The results will be disseminated on three levels: (1) to the scientific world (specialists in the field of health and aging and health communication); (2) to health practitioners working with older persons; (3) to society at large, with a focus on institutions and groups directly concerned by the issue.
缺乏社会关系似乎会影响老年人的健康和预期寿命。社会关系的质量和多样性与晚年的健康和幸福感相关。慢性疼痛是老龄化人口中的一个重要问题。患有慢性疼痛的老年人、他们的亲属以及医疗保健系统的相关人员之间进行有效的沟通，有助于管理这种疾病。关于晚年沟通的研究通常不会将老年人的整个社交网络作为一个整体来考虑，而只关注特定的部分（例如，家庭或医务人员）。这种缺乏科学数据的情况使得医疗保健系统的相关人员无法提供解决方案来弥合具有临床相关性的沟通差距。因此，我们的研究有三个目标：（1）确定老年人如何感知与社交网络就慢性疼痛进行的沟通；（2）确定他们未满足的沟通需求；（3）制定改善晚年慢性疼痛沟通的建议。该研究将分为两个阶段。第一阶段将实现目标 1 和 2。它将涉及对约 50 名 75 岁以上患有慢性疼痛且没有严重认知或听觉障碍的老年人进行个人访谈。在这一阶段，我们将采用多层次分析方法。我们将通过结合内容分析、话语分析和社会网络理论，绘制老年人的个人网络，并确定他们的沟通实践和需求。研究的第二阶段将基于第一阶段的结果（目标 3）提出建议。它将需要与不同利益相关者（老年人、亲属照顾者、卫生专业人员、决策者）进行焦点小组讨论。在第二阶段，我们将使用内容分析来确定关注点和行动建议。研究结果将在三个层面上传播：（1）科学界（健康和老龄化以及健康沟通领域的专家）；（2）为与老年人合作的卫生保健工作者；（3）为社会大众，重点是与该问题直接相关的机构和团体。
