Engaging on a slightly more human level

A qualitative study exploring the care of individuals with back pain in a multidisciplinary pain clinic

Bibliographic Data

ID4525762
AuthorsKarime Mescouto (0000-0002-4107-6883, The University of Queensland, corresponding author), Rebecca Olson (0000-0002-7721-8708, The University of Queensland), Nathalia Costa (0000-0002-2271-5408, The University of Queensland), Kerrie Evans (0000-0002-7592-7850, Healthia Limited, Australia), M Dillon (0000-0001-8022-5880, The University of Queensland), Niamh Jensen (0000-0001-8574-847X, Metro South Health Pain Rehabilitation Centre, Australia), Kelly Walsh (0000-0001-5266-0658, Metro South Health Pain Rehabilitation Centre, Australia), Megan Weier (0000-0001-8957-6003, UNSW Sydney), Kathryn Lonergan, Paul W Hodges (0000-0002-1206-9107, The University of Queensland), Jenny Setchell (0000-0002-1946-4492, The University of Queensland)
Year2024
Volume28
Issue1
Pages161-182
Publication date2024-01-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueHealth An Interdisciplinary Journal for the Social Study of Health Illness and Medicine (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1363-4593 • E-ISSN: 1461-7196
PublisherSAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1177/13634593221127817
PMID36433763
OpenAlexW4310195636
LanguageEN
Citations received3
References cited57

Chronic low back pain is characterised by multiple and overlapping biological, psychological, social and broader dimensions, affecting individuals' lives. Multidisciplinary pain services have been considered optimal settings to account for the multidimensionality of chronic low back pain but have largely focused on cognitive and behavioural aspects of individuals' pain. Social dimensions are usually underexplored, considered outside or beyond healthcare professionals' scope of practice. Employing Actor Network Theorist Mol's concept multiplicity, our aim in this paper is to explore how a pain service's practices bring to the fore the social dimensions of individuals living with low back pain. Drawing on 32 ethnographic observations and four group exchanges with the service's clinicians, findings suggest that practices produced multiple enactments of an individual with low back pain. Although individuals' social context was present and manifested during consultations at the pain service (first enactment: 'the person'), it was often disconnected from care and overlooked in 'treatment/management' (second enactment: 'the patient'). In contrast, certain practices at the pain service not only provided acknowledgement of, but actions towards enhancing, individuals' social contexts by adapting rules and habits, providing assistance outside the service and shifting power relations during consultations (third enactment: 'the patient-person'). We therefore argue that different practices enact different versions of an individual with low back pain in pain services, and that engagement with individuals' social contexts can be part of a service's agenda

Acknowledgement · Alternative medicine · Business · Low back pain · Multidisciplinary approach · Political science · Qualitative research · Social science · Sociology · Health Policy Implementation Science · Medicine · Mental Health and Patient Involvement · Musculoskeletal pain and rehabilitation · Nursing · Psychology · Social Psychology · Social Work

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