Grant: Travel Awards - Institute Community Support

Chronic pain affects 1 in 5 of children and teens. This means that 1-3 million Canadian youth often deal with pain lasting months to years. This pain can get in the way of being active, sleeping, going to school, and getting along with friends and family. Teens with chronic pain and their families are experts on what it's like to live with pain. The goal of this project is to make pain better by creating partnerships between teens with chronic pain, their families, healthcare providers, and researchers. This means giving everyone a voice when deciding what we need to learn about pain, how we should learn it, and the best way to share what we learn with others. We are doing this in three ways: (1) developing a list of youth with chronic pain and their families who are interested in partnering with healthcare providers and researchers; (2) teaching youth with chronic pain, their parents, healthcare providers, and researchers how to create good partnerships to do research together; and (3) creating a list of the top 10 most important things we still need to learn. Each step involves youth with chronic pain, parents, healthcare providers, and researchers. We are asking everyone about their experiences. When we're done, we will share what we learn to make it easier for patients and researchers to partner together in the future. The project is led by a group of chronic pain researchers and healthcare providers across Canada, as well as youth with chronic pain and their parents. We want to share what we've found with other healthcare providers and researchers who work with youth with pain around the world.