This course aims to provide health care professionals with the knowledge and skills to use, or refer for evidence-based non-pharmacological interventions for acute or chronic pain. Using a didactic and workshop based curriculum, the facilitators will cover the physiology of interventions, methods of assessment to identify biopsychosocial contributors to pain, mechanisms of placebo analgesia, graded motor imagery, electrophysical agents, integrated pain management programmes, principles of exercise, relaxation and mindfulness practice and principles of pharmacological management. This course is primarily designed for non-prescribing health care professionals but would be advantageous for all health care professionals managing people with complex pain conditions.

By the end of this module participants will:

• Have reviewed the physiology of pain mechanisms
• Be able to use selected instruments to assess pain, pain-related mechanisms and the impact of pain
• Be able to apply a clinical reasoning process to develop a biopsychosocial formulation
• Know the evidence to support the use of interventions commonly used in the management of people with pain
• Be able to deliver treatment using motor imagery, TENS, group exercise, group facilitated relaxation and group facilitated collaborative problem solving
• Understand that it is the clinician's ethical responsibility to know the mechanisms of the meaning response and reflectively consider how it may impact on treatment
• Be familiar with the principles of the pharmacological management of acute and chronic pain