Consortium to Research Individual, Interpersonal, and Social influences in Pain (CRIISP)

Lead Research Organisation: University of Bath
Department Name: Psychology

Abstract

(i) Aims and objectives
Pain that lasts a long time (is chronic) takes apart lives, relationships and families. Although biological signals can help understand why pain happens, they do not fully account for the experiences people have, or why pain develops the way it does. Psychological and social factors, such as thoughts and feelings, personal relationships, and lifestyle, can also affect chronic pain. However, we do not yet know which of these psychological and social mechanisms are most important, or how they combine with biological signals to affect chronic pain. Our aim is to determine the psychosocial mechanisms underpinning chronic pain. Our objective is to create a clearer account of how, and in what way, psychosocial factors (interacting with biology) affect pain: what makes chronic pain start, keep going, get better or get worse. In doing so, we will also identify ways to prevent chronic pain from happening, and reduce the negative effects that pain can have on people's lives.

(ii) Data to be collected
We will focus on how people think and feel about pain, how others affect their pain, and consider the wider social and environmental influences on pain. These psychosocial mechanisms will in turn be described in the context of physiological and biomedical dimensions of chronic pain. Our planned work involves people with pain at each stage to ensure our work is guided by the way pain affects people's lives. We will start by exploring the existing evidence, to identify what matters most, including what measures and methods best reflect lived experience. We will ask people with pain which of these factors matter most, and test them in existing large datasets. We will run new studies on the psychological and social factors that hold greatest promise. We will explore how the way people think and behave contributes to pain, and observe how people live their lives with pain. We will study the ways people adapt to live well with pain, and identify the part played in chronic pain by the factors we are interested in.

(iii) Benefits of the consortium
A consortium approach allows us to think big. It gives us a rare opportunity to change how we think about pain and how we research it. To achieve these ambitious goals, we need to bring together expertise from different scientific disciplines, alongside people with pain, and in a way that has not previously been possible. The Advanced Pain Discovery Platform (APDP) not only allows us to do this, but also offers us an unprecedented prospect of working consistently at a conceptual level, to generate data and test ideas. It also allows for cross-consortium working, to stimulate and evaluate new ideas and spot opportunities for future pain research and discovery.

(iv) Legacy and/or sustainability of the network
Our primary contribution will be to identify the psychological and social factors that are most important for understanding pain. We will develop new ways to study pain, new measures of pain and its impacts, and most importantly identify key psychosocial mechanisms of pain, showing how they work alongside biology to promote or limit pain. We will provide guidance about these psychosocial mechanisms, and place this resource within the APDP, for use by the wider interdisciplinary pain research community, including those who wish to incorporate psychosocial factors in medical-epidemiological, clinical, or human genotyping studies. Through our work, and the partnerships that generated it, we will open new, broad avenues of pain research that will develop better ways to help people to live well with less pain.

Technical Summary

The challenge we address is identifying the most promising psychosocial mechanisms underpinning chronic pain, and making them accessible to biomedical research.

Our vision is to deliver a transformational contribution to pain science and practice. Our aim is to deliver robust, diverse, and meaningful psychosocial content on the platform for rich phenotyping and behavioural classification. Our objectives are to define the psychosocial pathway(s) to development and maintenance of chronic pain; to identify multidimensional factors that maintain or exacerbate pain across the lifespan; and to identify modifiable psychosocial factors that can prevent or disrupt the pathway to chronic pain.

Working together, people with chronic pain and world-leading behavioural scientists will repurpose existing datasets and run quantitative and qualitative studies to collect new data. Our interdisciplinary consortium, across 8 universities and a wider collaborator network, creates synergies across group disciplines, and is consolidated through work structures, membership, governance, and advisory groups.

We have embedded people with pain in this consortium from its inception to ensure what matters most to those with pain is reflected in our goals, objectives and work plans. From our PPI Network we will establish work development groups for each research team, and a Consortium Public Advisory Group to oversee and guide. Through the consortium we seek to harness the UK's expertise in psychosocial and biomedical research. The scale of the consortium provides an unprecedented opportunity to draw together the psychosocial and the biomedical to make real progress towards improving the lives of those living with pain.

Our primary contribution, and legacy, will be to identify and classify robust candidate psychosocial mechanisms, with guidance about best methods and measures, to inform novel targets for research, prevention, and treatment.
 
Description Birkinshaw, H., Carter, L., Lilywhite, A., Ly, A., Diego, V and Stone, S., CRIISP: How do you experience pain? Futures Festival 2023, University of Bristol, 29th Sept 2023. 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach Regional
Primary Audience Public/other audiences
Results and Impact 367 members of the general public attended the Futures Festival at SS Great Britain, Bristol. The CRIISP exhibition had 3 interactive activities (1) Physical activity to engage people with the role of attention, distraction and validation relating to our research and their experience of the activity, (2) Using drawing to engage with the subjective experience of pain and pain transitions, (3) Word association game relating to pain impact to engage the public with our research. These activities were designed to engage the public with our research, provoke conversation and interest, and encourage them to think differently about pain.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2023
URL https://futuresnight.co.uk/events/up-late-s-s-great-britain/
 
Description CRIISP Blog 
Form Of Engagement Activity Engagement focused website, blog or social media channel
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Study participants or study members
Results and Impact Series of blog posts on the work done by the CRIISP project and its team raising awareness and disseminating the results and learnings from the team.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2022,2023,2024
URL https://criisp.uk/blog-2/
 
Description CRIISP Twitter 
Form Of Engagement Activity Engagement focused website, blog or social media channel
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Public/other audiences
Results and Impact Engagement and promotion of CRIISP activities through the use of social media
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2022,2023,2024
URL https://twitter.com/CRIISPAPDP
 
Description CRIISP Website 
Form Of Engagement Activity Engagement focused website, blog or social media channel
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Study participants or study members
Results and Impact CRIISP website sharing information about the project, the people involved and disseminating the outputs produced.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2022,2023,2024
URL https://criisp.uk
 
Description Developing a public involvement network for a multi-centre programme of pain research. 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach Regional
Primary Audience Patients, carers and/or patient groups
Results and Impact For information to community of people with chronic pain and healthcare practitioners working in that community.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2022
 
Description Magazine article in Pain Matters 
Form Of Engagement Activity A magazine, newsletter or online publication
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach National
Primary Audience Patients, carers and/or patient groups
Results and Impact An article entitled "The impact of society and our minds on the workings of chronic pain" appeared in 'Pain Matters Magazine' (Issue 80, pp. 12-13). Authored by members of CRIISP (Shivji, N., Wilkinson C., McCabe C, ChewGraham CA, Austin L, Keogh E), this was part of a broader magazine piece highlighting the work of the Advanced Pain Discovery Platform (APDP).
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2022
URL https://painconcern.org.uk/product/pain-matters-80/
 
Description Press release to announce the funding of the project 
Form Of Engagement Activity A press release, press conference or response to a media enquiry/interview
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach National
Primary Audience Media (as a channel to the public)
Results and Impact The University of Bath put out a press release to announce the funding of the pain consortium. Its primary purpose was to highlight the nature of the work to be conducted within the consortium, with the focus on psychosocial factors in pain. It outlined the joint funding from UKRI and Versus Arthritis, and the wider Advanced Pain Discovery Platform. It included quotes from funders and our PPI partner. It also outlined the collaborations across 8 institutions. Some partner institutions (CIs) also put out similar phrased versions. In addition, Bath also produced a short video about the funding, which was pushed through its social media account -- analytics show it has had 1300 views so far. As this was an announcement, the impact is not known.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2021
URL https://www.bath.ac.uk/announcements/major-ukri-versus-arthritis-investment-funds-transformative-pai...
 
Description Social and cultural influences in the experience of transition to or from long-term (chronic) pain. 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact To showcase the CRIISP Consortium research and to gain feedback from a research community that includes ethnographic, cohort, pain and mixed method researchers. The purpose was information sharing by presenting the preliminary results from our qualitative systematic review work and gain feedback on our proposed research. In addition, to network and build relations with other researchers within these very relevant fields of study.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2023