Elena Castarlenas, Ruben Roy, Pilar Monteso-Curto, Isabel Salvat, Jordi Miro
1) Spain
As youth spend most of their time in school, teachers could be of help to improve the quality of life of youth with chronic pain while they are at school. The aim of this study was to identify the needs that teachers face to help in the management of chronic pain problems experienced by children and adolescents attending their classes.
A Delphi survey including two rounds was conducted. The first round consisted of an open question asking about the needs and difficulties that teachers face to help students with chronic pain. Next, the needs identified were analyzed and categorized. In the second round, those needs were rated according to their degree of importance on a 0 to 10 rating scale (0 = not at all important; 10 = extremely important). Consensus about the importance of a need was defined as being rated 7 or above by at least 70% of the participants.
Fifty needs were identified in the first round. These needs were related to education, training, organization/logistics and communication with the family and the health care center. Among the most important needs, based on the importance given and consensus reached were: 1)having information about the most appropriate attitudes and responses to a student with chronic pain, 2)how to reduce absenteeism, 2)how to smooth going back to school after a long absence due to his or her pain problem; 3)how to establish an effective communication with the family.
The results of this study provide new data regarding the needs that teachers who have students with chronic pain in their classes have to face at school. This information will be useful to help teachers support these students while at school.
This work was funded by grant PSI2014-60180-JIN from the Spanish Ministry of Science and Competitiveness (MINECO)
