Chronic Pain in the School Setting: The Teachers' Point of View

Abstract

BACKGROUND:The aims of this study were to (1) examine the reactions of teachers and student teachers to children

Educational Needs and Resources for Teachers Working with Students with Chronic Pain: Results of a Delphi Study

“…Our results are in concordance with those obtained in the studies conducted by Logan and Curran [23] and Solé et al [22], who showed that teachers often report some barriers that interfere in their helping the students to mitigate the negative impact of pain. For example, Logan and Curran [23], using a focus group methodology, examined school personnel's understanding of youth's chronic pain and identified some situations difficult to manage related to this situation.…”

“…The results of this study provide new data regarding the educational needs and resources that would be of help to teachers with students with chronic pain in their classes. In addition, this research studied the resources that teachers can use to help students with chronic pain achieve their best potential, thus improving and expanding previous findings [22,23]. The participation of a diverse body of stakeholders in this consensus study increased the value of the results by bringing a wider perspective on the problem [28].…”

“…This is of special relevance granted the findings on the association between significant others' reactions (from parents, or schoolmates) and someone's pain behavior and related disability [32,33]. Research on teachers' responses to students' pain-related behaviors has shown that some of these reactions (i.e., solicitousness) are associated with the maintenance of pain and related disability [22,[34][35][36]. Therefore, being able to differentiate which responses may have positive or negative consequences is an important challenge that must be addressed.…”

“…Specifically, school personnel reported difficulties to address high rates of school absenteeism, understand the great variability of chronic pain conditions and their symptomatology, adapt school policies to the needs of these youth with chronic pain, attend adequately to the needs of other students, or deal with parents. The study conducted by Solé et al [22] also identified the most common problems that teachers face when having students with chronic pain and the sources of help that could be of interest for teachers to support these scholars. In this study, absenteeism emerged again as the most problem they should cope with, followed by the negative effect of pain on the ability of students to engage in academic activities.…”

“…Research has identified some of the barriers that teachers face when trying to help students with chronic pain. For example, difficulties related to the management of high rates of school absenteeism, the attention to students with chronic pain, or the relationship and communication with their parents or guardians [22,23]. However, there is not any study focusing on the educational needs and resources that teachers have to attend to and with which to help their students with chronic pain.…”