Research project In Sweden, chronic pain is common and the prevalence, in the adult population, is approximately 20%. Chronic pain conditions often have negative consequences on several aspects of daily life, such as high pain intensity, sleep disorder, participation in society during both leisure and working time, as well as on the total experience of life satisfaction. There are also often psychological consequences like anxiety and depression.
Geographically differences and wide inclusion criteria’s can lead to different designs and settings in Multimodal rehabilitation (MMR)in specialist care and also which patients how participate. The geographically conditions with long distance to the specialist clinics and MMR results in that patients need to stay in patient hotel during participate in MMR. How this circumstances influence the patients experiences of the rehabilitation have not previously been studied. This makes it interesting to investigate the patients´ own experiences of staying at a patient hotel and be away from home their home environment and daily routines. Access to MMR has been found to differ between people with chronic caused of geographical and organizational circumstances. Also, differences in being referred to specialist clinics and get possibility to participate in MMR program, has been found to differ. This may affect the possibility to return to work and levels of sick leave. This project aims is to study regional differences about patients referred to MMR and to investigate factors that may affect the possibility to return to work. The geographic conditions in the region with long distances to MMR includes that patients need to stay at patient hotels during participate in MMR. To live in another setting, away from the normal everyday life, can be experienced differently from different persons. Therefore, the research group aim is to study the experiences of patients, who have participate in MMR and stayed at patient hotels during the rehabilitation period.
Ann-Charlotte Kassberg, PhD in occupational therapy, Luleå University of Technology
This project includes three quantitative studies, data collected by a total selections from the Swedish Quality Registry for Pain Rehabilitation (SQRP) from 2011-2015. Variables that will be studied in the project are: pain intensity, work/sick leave, anxiety, depression, quality of life, activity and physical function. Regional differences and similarities together with factors that can predict sick leave will be investigated in this project. An interview study including patients that have participated in MMR programs in northern Sweden are also included in the project. Data to this study will be collected and analyzed with a qualitative approach.
The aim of the project is to investigate regional differences and similarities for Patient-Reported Outcomes Measures (PROM) in patients who participated in MMR in specialist care in Sweden, focusing on age group and gender, as well as studying the patient experiences of participating in MMR in north of Sweden.
