Chronic Pain Australia tells Retail Pharmacy Assistants in this month’s Awareness Spotlight that it recognises the vital role PAs play in pain management and encourages wider knowledge and raising awareness in their communities about this often invisible illness.
What are the mission and goals of Chronic Pain Australia?
Chronic Pain Australia is an organisation dedicated to reducing social and other barriers related to living with chronic pain. Our mission is to improve the quality of life for the 3.6 million Australians with chronic pain.1
Our main goals are to enhance knowledge and understanding about chronic pain across Australia, promote better understanding among health professionals about what it’s like to live with chronic pain, and work towards supported self-management of pain.
What is chronic pain?
Chronic pain is an often invisible illness that impacts all aspects of a person’s life. Chronic pain is defined as pain that’s ongoing for at least three months. It affects the person’s ability to work, move, sleep and enjoy family time.
Deloitte suggests there are hundreds of chronic pain conditions, and it’s not uncommon for some people to experience a mix of these conditions.
You focus on the lived experiences of people in pain. Why is this approach important?
At Chronic Pain Australia, focusing on lived experiences not only validates the struggles of ‘voiceless’ people, but also reduces discrimination and stigma surrounding chronic pain.
It’s common for people living with chronic pain to feel isolated and invisible, so, sharing stories helps the community realise that they’re not alone. It also adds to the understanding of a condition still not fully understood.
Many of our members tell of similar experiences, and health professionals appreciate that while the research into chronic pain isn’t fully developed, it’s a widespread issue with common symptoms. Sharing the lived experience of different people can help the loved ones of people living with chronic pain better understand what the person they know and love is going through.
By contributing to this richer understanding of the condition, we hope to remove the stigma and the isolation around chronic pain, two of the worst non-pain-related social symptoms of the condition.
What role does pharmacy have in pain management for people living with chronic pain?
Pharmacies are essential in managing chronic pain by regularly distributing advice and medications to people living with chronic pain. We know that community pharmacists see people living with chronic pain often without them needing to book an appointment, which is a timely convenience.
Pharmacists are responsible for assessing risk factors when dispensing potentially harmful and addictive medicines, and providing adequate support for one’s chronic pain. Pharmacists are also often able to suggest a complementary treatment that the patient hasn’t yet tried. They provide vital community support for people struggling to manage what can be a very lonely and dispiriting condition.
What events, research and campaigns have Chronic Pain Australia been involved in?
Each year, we conduct research and run events and campaigns to create awareness of chronic pain. We invite people living with chronic pain each year to join our National Pain Week, a week full of in-person and virtual events. This year, our campaign has been ‘Triple AAA standards of care: awareness, accessibility and affordability’, which we believe all patients with chronic pain should receive.
We survey the pain community annually and share and promote research studies that have been approved by an ethical body, to ensure understanding of our members’ chronic pain.
Tell us about National Pain Week and why it’s essential for spreading awareness about chronic pain.
Our annual event, National Pain Week, validates the experiences of Australians living with chronic pain and raises awareness of the condition among professionals and policymakers. This is important as these professionals and policymakers often have the power to decide what treatment people living with chronic pain can access, and control funding for research into the condition. Chronic pain research and treatment are currently severely underfunded.
What events did you hold during National Pain Week?
There’s something for everyone. Many of these events are virtual, ensuring we’re being Covid safe, and many can attend from the comfort of people’s homes. Our events have a range of panel discussions featuring health experts and people living with chronic pain.
On the first day of National Pain Week, we hosted a Facebook live event featuring keynote speakers discussing their experiences … and we released our strategic plan for the year. We also had seven webinars from different experts in the fields of pain. Alongside the events in National Pain Week, we released the results of the National Pain Survey.
What insights were you hoping to gain from the National Pain Survey?
The National Pain Survey gives us meaningful insights into how Australians with chronic pain deal with their pain, the stigma attached to it, and how their pain affects their everyday life. Each year, the survey is adjusted to many Australians’ current challenges. For example, this year, we added questions that relate specifically to the effects of the rising cost of living, in particular the increase in the cost of medicines.
We’re interested in determining how the rising cost of living affects our members and whether it adversely affects their chronic pain management. From here, Chronic Pain Australia can use these results to better tailor our research and advice to assist our members as much as possible.
How can retail pharmacy assistants support your work or learn more about chronic pain?
Retail pharmacy assistants are vital in our chronic pain members’ lives. As new research becomes available on managing chronic pain, pharmacy assistants can adapt their treatment plans for patients who come to them for medical advice and over-the-counter drugs.
Pharmacy assistants who would like to find out more about chronic pain are very welcome to join our National Pain Week webinar event and ask questions. We also have many resources on our website that help professionals like pharmacy assistants better understand chronic pain.
To learn more about chronic pain: chronicpainaustralia.org.au
References:
- Chronic Pain Australia. ‘The cost of pain in Australia’. March 2019. org.au/static/uploads/files/the-cost-of-pain-in-australia-final-report-12mar-wfxbrfyboams.pdf
This feature was originally published in the August issue of Retail Pharmacy Assistants e-magazine.
