Department of Biomedicine, Faculty of Medicine of University of Porto, Porto, Portugal.
i3S Institute for Research & Innovation in Health, Porto, Portugal.
PLoS One. 2022 Aug 17;17(8):e0273213. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0273213. eCollection 2022.
Chronic pain affects almost 38% of the Portuguese adult population, with high costs for both patients and society. Those who suffer with chronic pain frequently complain of feeling misunderstood and of lack of support. These complaints are the main reason why support telephone lines for chronic pain were created in some countries. However, there is no scientific data supporting their creation or evaluating their performance. This paper presents a qualitative study protocol to assess patients and healthcare professionals' perspectives on the creation of a telephone support line for chronic pain. It constitutes the first step to attain the main goal of developing and implementing a functioning support line for chronic pain in Portugal. The methodology to assess patients and healthcare professionals' perspectives and needs is presented. In order to gather information as close to reality as possible, focus groups interviews were chosen as data sources. Given the present context of the COVID-19 pandemic, meetings will take place online, using a digital platform. All interviews will be transcribed verbatim, coded and synthesised into categories and main themes. Thematic analysis will be conducted using NVivo® V12 software, employing an iterative and reflexive approach. Finally, comparative and relational analysis will be performed in order to identify topics where patients and professionals converge or greatly diverge. The findings will be useful for grounding the creation of a telephone support line for chronic pain patients. Results dissemination will be important for policy-makers to develop a new perspective towards chronic pain services available.
慢性疼痛影响了近 38%的葡萄牙成年人口，给患者和社会都带来了高昂的成本。那些患有慢性疼痛的人经常抱怨感到被误解和缺乏支持。这些抱怨是一些国家为慢性疼痛患者创建支持热线的主要原因。然而，目前尚无科学数据支持创建这些热线，也没有对其性能进行评估。本文介绍了一个定性研究方案，以评估患者和医疗保健专业人员对创建慢性疼痛支持热线的看法。这是在葡萄牙为慢性疼痛开发和实施有效支持热线的主要目标的第一步。本文介绍了评估患者和医疗保健专业人员的观点和需求的方法学。为了尽可能接近实际情况收集信息，选择焦点小组访谈作为数据来源。鉴于目前 COVID-19 大流行的背景，会议将在线上使用数字平台举行。所有访谈将逐字记录、编码并综合成类别和主题。将使用 NVivo® V12 软件进行主题分析，采用迭代和反思的方法。最后，将进行比较和关系分析，以确定患者和专业人员趋同或存在较大分歧的主题。研究结果将有助于为慢性疼痛患者创建支持热线提供依据。研究结果的传播对于决策者制定新的慢性疼痛服务视角非常重要。
