Teaching pain management to health professional students: A systematic review and meta-analysis

Satisfactory pain management can have a significant impact on clients' activities of daily living. We questioned what types of pain management education might improve health professional students' knowledge, skills and perceptions?

From inception until 30^th July 2020, we searched MEDLINE, EBM Reviews, CINAHL Plus, ERIC, EMBASE, Cochrane database and Monash University library. Inclusion criteria were controlled trials of health professional students' pain education compared to alternative education, usual curriculum or no intervention. Studies were limited to English. Data were synthesised using meta-analysis.

Fourteen articles were included in this review. For continuous data, meta-analysis demonstrated a clear effect favouring the intervention for knowledge SMD 1.47 [95% CI 1.18, 1.77], skills 0.93 [0.58, 1.28] or perceptions 0.69 [0.31, 1.08]. For dichotomous data, results showed no effect for knowledge 4.21 [0.65, 27.41], skills 2.26 [0.47, 11.01] or perceptions 1.96 [0.66, 5.76]. However, the overall result showed an effect 2.82 [1.20, 6.59] favouring the intervention.

In summary, short theoretical interventions are sufficient to change students' knowledge and perceptions. Longer interventions incorporating interactivity improve skills. Further research is required to indicate the best method, outcome measure, length of intervention and follow-up in delivering these pain courses and assessing the cost and long-term retention of information.