1 Worldwide consensus has identified pain education for health care professionals as inadequate to 2 meet the clinical need for pain assessment and management. In the past decade, several 3 professional organizations and academic institutions have taken this challenge and formulated 4 curricula and training (often interprofessional) informed by the neuroscience of education and 5 learning. As the cumulative experience among pain educators worldwide grows and evolves, a body 6 of work has developed that systematically assesses the efficacy and real-world effectiveness of 7 diverse approaches to pain education as a crucial stage in the translation of basic and applied 8 knowledge into clinical practice. 9 10 Challenges facing pain educators include deciding upon and conveying the content to be 11 transmitted, how best to use competencies related to this content, and how to tailor general 12 educational approaches to best meet the needs of health care professionals dealing with patients 13 with pain. Other issues include engaging patients and the public, including policy makers, in shared 14 efforts to reduce unnecessary pain and suffering and optimize clinical outcomes associated with the 15 entire spectrum of painful experiences. 16 17 This Research Topic provides a collection of articles addressing previous and ongoing barriers to the 18 education of health care professionals, including competencies, and evidence-based approaches to 19 overcoming these barriers, complemented by concurrent advances in patient and public education. 20We invited contributions on, but not limited to, the following topics: 21• Content of pain education for health care professionals and its refinement according to 22 changes in scientific knowledge and clinical practice. 23• Methodologies synthesizing and translating pain-related content to ensure application to 24 clinical care of people with pain across the lifespan. 25• Frameworks and approaches to overcome challenges encountered by educators trying to 26 facilitate learning about contemporary topics. 27• Gaps in post-graduate and continuing education for licensed health professionals. 28 Eleven articles were accepted for inclusion in the Research Topic. 29 Aging -Educational Assessment of Need (PAEAN) to inform pain, comorbidities, and clinical decision-53 making associated with the complexities of assessing and managing geriatric pain. Their findings 54 suggest that several factors impact pain-related clinical decision-making and that it is feasible to 55 survey healthcare practitioners about the influence of comorbidities on decisions in the care of older 56 adults with pain. The contribution by Soenarto et al. provides evidence that mnemonics are a helpful 57 tool to develop knowledge of and skills for assessing pain in clinical consultation during a simulation-58 based educational workshop. Soenarto et al. found that medical students' knowledge and skills of 59 assessing chronic pain was improved using the PQRST (P, provoke and palliate; Q, quality; R, region 60 and radiation; S, severity; T, time) mnemonic, although the addition of an ACT-UP (A, activity; C, 61 coping; T, think; U, upset; P, people) was no better than using PQSRT alone. Soenarto et al. conclude 62 that mnemonics are useful and can be integrated into various learning contexts such as lectures, 63 demonstrations, simulations, and interactions with patients. 64
The contribution by Shipton et al. provides a useful approach to the complex process of curriculum 66 change and supports the need for more formalised procedures to design, develop and evaluate the 67 pain medicine curriculum. Shipton et al. describe how they conceptualised and developed a 68 purposeful method to facilitate structured integration of pain education into the medical curriculum. 69 Their Pain Medicine Curriculum Framework comprises future healthcare practice needs, the 70 competencies and capabilities required of graduates, the teaching, learning and assessment 71 methods to use, and institutional parameters. The contribution of Cao and Van Deusen provides 72 evidence for the integration of opioid use disorder and chronic pain content within medical 73 curricula. Their topic review revealed a lack of emphasis on chronic pain education, biopsychosocial 74 approaches, and interprofessional learning in current US medical school curricula; and their 75 evaluation of twelve winning student-designed opioid use disorder curricula utilised more diverse 76 learning activities and assessment methods than current US medical school curricula. Program (SSIPCP) were maintained when the program had to be delivered online using Zoom due to
