Grant: Doctoral Research Award: Canada Graduate Scholarships

The Transitional Pain Service (TPS) at Toronto General Hospital is a multidisciplinary treatment program that aims to prevent chronic post-surgical pain (CPSP) and persistent opioid use after surgery. CPSP is a major public health problem impacting up to 70% of patients. Those experiencing CPSP are at higher risk for prolonged opioid use - which introduces challenges like addiction, misuse, and fatal overdose. Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) is effective in reducing patients' risk of CPSP and opioid use. However, access to such interventions is currently limited to predominantly in-person, specialized/hospital-based clinic settings like the TPS - which prioritize the patients at highest risk for CPSP and often require physician referrals for quick access. This creates challenges for lower-risk post-surgery patients to receive the timely care and information they need to help manage their pain. There is both a desire and a need for such treatment approaches to spread to other institutions, yet the shortage of specialized pain psychologists creates an additional barrier to widespread dissemination. In partnership with ManagingLife, the creators of a mobile health application called Manage My Pain, the proposed project will develop and implement a fully self-guided online ACT intervention entitled Advancing Online Psychology Tools for the Transitional Pain Service (ADOPT-TPS) for waitlisted TPS patients. A randomized, controlled pilot feasibility trial will evaluate the efficacy of ADOPT-TPS by comparing it to a pre-existing psychologist-guided workshop. Competitive funding was already received from the MHS UHN AMO Innovation Fund ($200,000) to support this project's preliminary development. This scalable, evidence-based online intervention will be easily implemented at institutions across Canada, and eventually globally, that wish to develop transitional pain services to address CPSP and opioid use but do not have specialized pain psychologists on staff.