Policy Briefing #7 - Pain Management

This month’s policy briefing focuses on pain management. IAPO’s Declaration on Patient-Centred Healthcare outlines that, despite representing patients from many different disease backgrounds, the focus must be on addressing the common needs of all patient communities, regardless of their disease area.

Since chronic pain affects many different patient populations over a diverse range of disease areas, the subject of pain is highly relevant to IAPO’s core value of patient-centred healthcare, as outlined in the IAPO 2017 engagement and empowerment plan.

September marks International Pain Awareness Month, which aims to raise awareness of the challenges faced by those living with chronic pain. The burden of living with long-term pain should be considered a serious health problem in its own right, and patients with chronic pain often suffer from significant stigma. This is often the result of not being fully able to communicate the subjective experience of pain. It is therefore vital to establish relevant and meaningful communication channels, including communication between patients and stakeholders, and tools to assist patients to convey the pain they are experiencing.  

In this briefing, IAPO provides an overview of the global policies in place regarding pain management, and highlights advocacy strategies in raising understanding and awareness within the general public. Harnessing patient involvement in decision-making is vital to create patient-centric pain treatment and management strategies.  Highlighted in this briefing were 3 main actions: 

• Increasing the understanding of the issues faced by patients living with pain
• Creating tools to help manage pain and lead more active, fuller lives
• Sharing of experiences between patients, allowing essential emotional support to manage long-term pain

This month’s policy briefing was written by Grace Melvin (Policy Research Intern) and Antonio Ciaglia (Policy Manager). If you have any questions or comments, please get in touch via email at grace@iapo.org.uk and antonio@iapo.org.uk.  

Read the policy briefing on pain management here

• Policy Briefing #1: Patient-Centered Healthcare
• Policy Briefing #2: Patient Information and Health Literacy
• Policy Briefing #3: High quality access to care
• Policy Briefing #4: Patient Involvement in HTA
• ​Policy Briefing #5: Patient Safety 
• Policy Briefing #6: Medicines Regulatory Harmonisation
• IAPO's 2017 Member Engagement and Empowerment Plan​​