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American Pain Society
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David A. Williams, PhD, Department Editor
David A. Williams, PhD; Michael E. Robinson, PhD
The APS Psychosocial Research Special Interest Group (SIG) met in October 1999 during the APS Annual Scientific Meeting in Ft. Lauderdale, FL. The focus of the meeting was to explore and learn about funding opportunities within the National Institutes of Health (NIH) that might be of interest to psychosocial pain researchers. The 1999 steering committee included David A. Williams, PhD (chair), Jennifer Haythornthwaite, PhD, Robert Kerns, PhD, Joan Romano, PhD, and Beverly Thorn, PhD. The guest speaker was Cheryl Kitt, MD, program director for pain research at the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke. This report summarizes the key points of the Psychosocial Research SIG meeting and alerts readers to several important business-related items of interest to the SIG.
The NIH Pain Research Consortium consists of 14 of the 18 institutes, 3 centers, and 5 offices within NIH. The goal of the consortium is to promote knowledge and research on pain. The consortium has sponsored conferences on pain that were open to the public and produced program announcements on pain research and requests for applications specific to pain conditions. For more information on the NIH Pain Research Consortium, visit its Web site at http://painconsortium.nih.gov
To date, the NIH Pain Research Consortium has sponsored two large conferences on pain. The first, “New Directions in Pain Research,” was held in November 1997. The second, “Gender and Pain,” was held in April 1998. Future conferences are planned and will be announced on the consortium’s Web site.
Since 1995, the consortium has sponsored five program announcements (PAs) that have been highly relevant for psychosocial pain researchers. The first was “Behavioral Pain Research,” followed by “New Directions in Pain Research,” “Research on Low Back Pain and Common Spinal Disorders,” “Vulvodynia- Systematic Epidemiologic, Etiologic or Therapeutic Studies,” and “Management of Symptoms at the End of Life.” A new PA, “New Directions in Pain Research-II,” is expected to be produced this year. In 1998, the consortium sponsored a request for application titled “Centers for Complementary and Alternative Medicine Research.”
The Computer Retrieval of Information on Scientific Projects (CRISP) system is a publicly accessible Web-based search engine that allows scientists or the public to see the types of research that NIH is funding. CRISP’s URL is http://crisp.cit.nih.gov
During the Psychosocial SIG meeting, we used the CRISP system to determine the number of awards that are given to pain researchers in general. We used the keyword pain to determine the number of research projects (e.g., R01s, R29s) and program projects (e.g., P01s), as well as the number of research career awards (e.g., K awards) and fellowships (e.g., F31 and F32 awards). The CRISP search revealed that the NIH funded 436 research projects focusing on pain, 39 research career awards in pain, and 14 fellowships in pain. It should be noted that the CRISP system may not be as accurate as NIH’s internal records and that its searching capability is more limited than the internal records of the NIH.
The Psychosocial SIG wanted to know how many of the awards given for pain-related research are focused on the psychosocial aspects of pain. To make this determination, we conducted searches combining the keyword pain with the keywords psychosocial, cognitive, and behavioral. Our searches produced many “hits,” but for our purposes, the specific aim or main focus of a study had to be psychosocial in nature. A study that merely included a psychological assessment measure did not merit inclusion in our list. Of the 436 research projects on pain, 59 (14%) were primarily psychosocial in nature. Of the 39 research career awards, 3 (8%) were primarily psychosocial in nature, and 5 of the 14 (36%) training fellowships were primarily psychosocial in nature.
We found that psychosocial researchers were studying 18 different pain populations. The six most frequently studied populations were patients with cancer, injured workers, patients with fibromyalgia, patients with temporomandibular disorder, pediatric patients, and patients with a combination of chronic pains. These populations constituted the focus of 65% of the research projects awarded.
We also investigated the nature of the psychosocial research projects and found that 36% of them were clinical trials of a psychological intervention for pain. Most trials were for a form of cognitive-behavioral therapy. Twenty-nine percent of the projects were assessment studies, which consisted of measurement development and prediction studies of risk factors for pain-related conditions. Studies examining the psychophysiological mechanisms of pain (e.g., sensory pain testing, imaging, psychoneuroimmunology correlates) accounted for 14% of the projects, and investigations into the psychological mechanisms associated with pain (e.g., affect, cognition, belief systems) accounted for an additional 10% of the projects. The remainder of the projects covered various topics, such as the cost-efficacy of pain treatment, meta-analytic studies of psychological factors, and the influence of social factors on pain.
The APS Scientific Program Committee urges psychosocial pain researchers to submit posters, symposia, and development course ideas for the APS Annual Scientific Meeting in November. Despite our pleas last year, we received very few psychosocial submissions.
In addition, the Psychosocial Research SIG has created a working electronic mailing list. To be included on the list, you must be a member of the Psychosocial Research SIG. Contact Cynthia Porter (cporter@amctec.com) to be added to or deleted from the list.
The 2000 Psychosocial Research SIG steering committee includes Michael Robinson, PhD (chair), Robert Dworkin, PhD, Jennifer Haythornthwaite, PhD, Robert Jamison, PhD, and Dennis Turk, PhD.
Michael E. Robinson is associate professor of clinical health and psychology at the University of Florida in Gainesville, FL.
