MANAGE MY PAIN
Pain management app empowers patients
Chronic pain is a serious public health concern in Canada. It affects millions of people and places a heavy burden on health care systems, social structures, and the economy.
A federal task force estimated about one in five Canadians are living with chronic pain.
However, Canadians have inadequate access to pain services and wait times are long. Programs like Ontario Self-Management, delivered by Bruyère Health, aim to address these gaps in care.
The Ontario Self-Management program partnered with the makers of the Manage My Pain app to further support people living with chronic pain. Developed by ManagingLife, Manage My Pain is a clinically-validated digital solution designed to help individuals track and manage their chronic pain.
Users of the app can log their pain episodes with details such as intensity, location, and triggers. They can also add their medication usage and daily activity. This information is then used to generate reports that can be shared with health care providers, aiding in the development of personalized treatment plans.
The app also provides a toolkit of resources called the Pain Guide. Based on best practices in pain psychology, the Pain Guide was co-developed with pain experts at Toronto General Hospital. It’s a set of text, video, audio, and interactive micro-learning modules that teach people about how pain works. The guide also empowers them with self-management strategies such as how to deal with alarm-raising thoughts and ways to overcome anxiety after surgery.
Through a one-year project, supported by the CAN Health Network, Bruyère Health implemented the app across three of its online self-management programs. Patients received ongoing support throughout and after the program’s completion through pain pattern reports and educational materials.
Over the course of the project, the Living Healthy and Progress Over Pain programs delivered by Ontario Self-Management also offered the Manage My Pain app to individuals from across the province.
The goal of the project was to evaluate the app’s potential to collect outcome information from program participants and to establish it as a reliable tool for ongoing pain self-management.
During the full year trial:
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175 program participants registered for the app
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96 percent of registered participants activated their account and 72 percent engaged in recording their symptoms
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23 records were entered per engaged participant on average, resulting in over 2,500 outcome data points collected for the program
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After the trial period, 94 participants responded to a post-implementation survey, and:
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76 percent found the app easy to use
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54 percent found the app made it easier to explain their pain to their doctor, with some remaining participants stating they didn’t have access to a doctor
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34 percent felt more in control of their pain since using the app
Bruyère Health has extended its partnership with Managing Life and has shared this successful initiative with 13 other provincial partners - to help provide valuable tools that support individuals living with chronic pain.
