We were intereviewed by Airing Pain's Paul Evans at the 2024 British Pain Society meeting, giving an update on our WITHIN study. The episode is out now.

Time Stamps: 

[00:00] Introduction by Paul Evans
Overview of Pain Concern’s work and the British Pain Society’s Annual Scientific Meeting 2024 as the context for the interviews.

[00:45] Professor Nicole Tang on Mental Defeat
She explains how chronic pain impacts identity and self-perception, drawing analogies from animal behavior. Discusses mental defeat as a predictor of distress and its relationship with suicidal behavior.

[02:27] Vicky Sandy-Davis on Person-Centred Care
She explains diagnostic overshadowing and highlights the importance of personalized care for individuals with learning disabilities and chronic pain. Shares challenges in supporting offenders with learning disabilities in the criminal justice system.

[16:26] Ian Taverner and Sarah Harrisson discuss Patient Involvement in Research
They discuss the value of integrating lived experiences of chronic pain sufferers into research.
They highlight the gap in representation of individuals with severe pain in public involvement initiatives. and advocate for meaningful participation of patients in shaping research.

[19:25] Nicole Tang and Jenna Gillett discuss the Warwick Mental Defeat Study and how mental defeat impacts pain management and affects levels of suicidal behaviour.

[30:00] Nicole Tang and Jenna Gillett discuss challenges in communicating research outcomes – the importance of making tools and findings accessible to clinicians and researchers. They talk about plans to share the mental defeat questionnaire for broader use in healthcare.

Jenna Gillett our PhD student from WITHIN passed her viva yesterday and is now Dr Gillett. We are very proud of you! Many thanks to Frankie Maratos, Gemma Gray, and Michaela Gummerum for being such amazing examiners!

Following rigorous evaluations by an independent committee, her paper has been awarded the accolade "Best PhD Student Open Science Paper in 2023". Very well deserved!

Gillett, Jenna L., Karadag, Paige, Themelis, Kristy, Li, Yu-Mei, Lemola, Sakari, Balasubramanian, Shyam, Singh, Swaran P. and Tang, Nicole K. Y. (2023) Investigating mental defeat in patients with chronic pain : protocol for a longitudinal experience sampling study. BMJ Open, 13 . e066577. doi:10.1136/bmjopen-2022-066577 ISSN 2044-6055.

Find out more our thinking on the importance of sleep, in shifting the chronic pain treatment paradigm from tissue- and disease-based approach to multimodal lifestyle interventions. See our Editorial appearing in the Brazilian Journal of Physical Therapy, led by Prof Dr Jo Nijs at Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Belgium.

Dr. Thomas Bilterys, who started his Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions – COFUND EUTOPIA Science and Innovation Fellowship with us in October, has just published a chapter in Advances in the Psychobiology of Sleep and Circadian Rhythms, edited by Melinda Jackson and Sean Drummond. Do check it out: https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003296966 Link opens in a new window

More about the chapter:

Chronic pain is one of the most common yet debilitating conditions. One of the most reported complaints by people with chronic pain is sleep problems. While sleep disturbances were initially seen as a consequence of pain, recent research advances have made it clear that sleep plays a significant role in the onset and persistence of pain. Despite the high prevalence and the close link between pain and sleep problems, there is currently no established treatment approach, nor a consensus to treat sleep problems in chronic pain as a priority. Greater understanding of the sleep-pain relationship and its underlying mechanisms is fundamental to the development, adaptation and optimisation of chronic pain and insomnia management strategies. In this chapter, the intricate bidirectional relationship between sleep and pain will be described. Moreover, an overview of the most researched potential mechanisms explaining the sleep-pain relationship will be presented. Lastly, current treatment approaches and directions for future research avenues will be discussed.

More about Thomas:

Thomas completed his PhD in health science from Ghent University and Rehabilitation Sciences from the Vrije Universiteit Brussel in 2022. After his PhD, he worked as a postdoctoral fellow in the Pain in Motion Research Group at Vrije Universiteit Brussel and the Sleep Disorders and Research Center at Henry Ford Health. His research mainly aims to increase insight into the interaction between sleep and pain and to improve the treatment of insomnia and chronic pain. His current research focuses on insomnia in people with chronic pain and possible treatment adaptations which consider the sleep-pain relationship to further enhance  treatment.