Developing a Novel Educational Intervention to Support Healthcare Professionals in the Assessment and Management of People Living with Cancer-Related Pain (D-NEHP Study)

Background: One in two people will be diagnosed with cancer in their lifetime, this equates 375,400 new cases a year [1]. Regardless of the type of cancer, pain remains the most reported symptom [3]. Two thirds (66%) of individuals with advanced disease and 39% of cancer survivors experience pain [4].

As a result of the impact of cancer-related pain (CrP), it features in five of the top ten research priorities for those living with and beyond cancer [36].

Healthcare professionals (HCPs) report low levels of knowledge, confidence, and clinical competence in supporting those with CrP [16,17,18]. This leads to inadequate management of CrP and increases the risk of moral distress and burnout of HCPs [21]. It's essential that HCPs have knowledge, skills, and confidence to support those impacted by CrP.

Aim: The project aims to understand the shared experience of CrP between HCPs, patients and their family/caregivers and identify the components of an intervention that can improve the knowledge, skills and confidence of HCPs working in non-specialist roles across the UK when caring for people impacted by CrP.

Objectives: To explore the experience and needs of HCPs, patients, and their family member/caregiver regarding CrP. To design a survey that assesses knowledge, skills, and confidence of HCPs when faced with the complexity of CrP. To establish current knowledge, skills, and confidence of HCPs within the UK, when faced with the complexity of CrP.

To bring together HCPs, patients, and their family/members caregivers to identify the components of an intervention that will improve the delivery of care of those impacted by CrP.

Method: The project is divided into four phases that align to the core elements of the MRC Complex Intervention Framework (2021): Phase 1: Interpretative phenomenological study to explore the lived experiences of patients and caregivers impacted by CrP through In-depth interviews. Work has already started exploring lived experience of HCPs.

Phase 2a: Develop a draft of the knowledge, skills, and confidence of CrP survey and map it to national and international documents to ensure all aspects of CrP are captured.

Phase 2b: Content validation of the survey through review by stakeholder group followed by pilot testing to a group of HCPs. Feasibility and comprehension will be measured using cognitive interviewing. Phase 3: Cross-sectional survey investigating HCPs knowledge, skills, and confidence of CrP. Recruitment will be open to HCPs working across the UK via social media.

Descriptive and logistic regression statistics for data analysis.

Phase 4: Using the findings of previous phases to develop a discussion template, online focus groups of HCPs, patients, and caregivers to identify the components of an intervention to improve HCPs knowledge, skills and confidence regarding CrP. Dissemination / outputs: Phase One: Publications of experience of CrP.

Core knowledge domains regarding CrP. Podcasts exploring experience/core knowledge domains. Phase Two: Knowledge, skills, and confidence of CrP survey. Website to host survey. Phase Three: Publications on knowledge, skills and confident of HCPs regarding CrP within UK population. Phase Four: Components of the intervention.

Podcast exploring intervention.