Improving the interaction between the physiotherapist and the patient with long-lasting pain

• Purpose: To investigate whether it would be possible to improve the understanding and communication between physiotherapists and patients with long-lasting pain by, in a systematic way, approaching their condition from a bodily existential perspective.Method: 31 physiotherapists answered written open questions about what happened when they in 90 encounters used key questions about living with pain together with a tentative frame for interpreting the answers - typologies of approaches to living with long-lasting pain. In the analysis, we combined qualitative content analysis with the counting of the numbers of codes.Results: According to the physiotherapists, patients were positive to answering the key questions, which also evoked emotional responses and reflection. The relation between the physiotherapists and their patients improved. The typologies helped the physiotherapists understand their patients better, as well as in assessing the patients’ problems and choosing treatment. In all, positive experience clearly dominated. Conclusion: When used by physiotherapists with an interest in patients with longlasting pain, the key questions and typologies seem to enrich the clinical interaction in many cases. To try the generalisability of our findings, we regard it an interesting possibility to conduct a larger, quantitative questionnaire study based on the experiences and results of the present one.

Keyword

Qualitative method

pain management

pain assessment

clinical dialogue

communication

bodily existential

physiotherapy

Publication and Content Type

vet (subject category)

ovr (subject category)