Grant: Doctoral Award - Frederick Banting and Charles Best Canada Graduate Scholarships

Interstitial Cystitis / Bladder Pain Syndrome (IC/BPS) is a debilitating and chronic pelvic pain condition affecting up to 6.5 percent of North American women (Clemens et al., 2009). Comparing patients with IC/BPS to age matched controls, patients reported poorer mental and physical QoL, more pain, depression, anxiety, catastrophizing, sexual dysfunction and less social support (Nickel et al., 2010). There is no standard etiology or medical treatment for IC/BPS, and pain is often palliative relying on symptom management. As such, IC/BPS is a disease associated with significant pain-related disability that incurs large costs to the medical system (inpatient / outpatient care, medications), costs to society (lost work productivity, unemployment) as well as costs to the self (diminished relationships and QoL) (Clemens et al., 2007). My Master's research showed that in women with IC/BPS, symptoms become disabling through negative affect (e.g., depression and anxiety) and catastrophizing (Katz et al., 2011). The next step in my line of research is to expand this model to include illness representations and cognitive behavioural coping to better understand how pain and symptoms may lead to disability. My plan has two primary objectives: 1) To develop a comprehensive self-regulatory cognitive behavioural model of IC/BPS. This study will collect questionnaire data from international collaborators (e.g., Canada, US, India, Germany, Taiwan). 2) Secondly, to disseminate these findings in a brief educational intervention to the community as well as health care professionals to improve knowledge on IC/BPS pain and management. This international multi-centre study will expand the literature by connecting research on pain, IC/BPS, self-regulation and cognitive behavioural theory. These results can be used to develop brief knowledge translation interventions in communities as well as clinical therapies to improve outcomes and decrease IC/BPS patient related disability.