The current state of pain education within Canadian physiotherapy programs: a national survey of pain educators

Abstract

Purpose: To determine the current state of pain education across physiotherapy programs in Canada.

Materials and methods: Educators that were responsible for teaching pain-related content at each of the 14 Canadian physiotherapy programs were invited to complete a cross-sectional survey. The online survey evaluated total time spent on pain education and the integration of content from international guidelines on pain education curricula.

Results and conclusions: Complete data were obtained from all Canadian physiotherapy programs. The total median time spent on pain education was 18 h, ranging from 8 to 65 h. Across all programs, only 38.6% of the recommended pain curriculum themes were fully integrated within physiotherapy programs. Most of the curriculum themes were partially addressed (median: 52.6%) and a small minority were not addressed (median: 10.5%). There was an overall trend in which greater time spent on pain education corresponded to a higher proportion of pain curriculum themes that were fully integrated. This is the first national survey of pain education that has included all physiotherapy programs across Canada. These data provide a foundation for understanding the current resources and content dedicated to pain education and are an essential step in benchmarking and potentially improving pain education for physiotherapists.

Implications for rehabilitation

• Integrating pain education within entry-level physiotherapy programs is a foundational step in translating pain research into effective physiotherapy pain management.

• This survey of all entry-level physiotherapy programs across Canada shows considerable variability in the time and scope of pain education and that, on average, less than 40% of recommended pain education curriculum content is adequately addressed.

• This work highlights the need for national reference standards in pain education to help improve consistency across training programs.

Keywords:

• Physical therapists
• surveys and questionnaires
• curriculum
• pain

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank all members of the Pain Education in Physiotherapy Curriculum Initiative for their participation in this study.

Disclosure statement

The authors report no conflicts of interest.