Chronic Cancer Pain Management Program

Survivors of breast cancer often experience chronic pain that is undertreated and gets in the way of their functioning, relationships, mental health, and quality of life. There is little research on the best ways of treating chronic pain in cancer that make good use of all the expertise offered by different health care providers such as nurses, psychologists, and physiotherapists. In addition, little is known about how to offer such a service in an online format. This study aims to pilot an online interprofessional pain management program for survivors of breast cancer. The investigators would like to know whether this treatment will help address the pain management concerns of patients, and whether it is feasible to offer this treatment in the future as multi-centre randomized controlled trial (RCT). Participants in the study will attend a 6-week online pain management program (I-Can-Manage-Pain after cancer) that will cover the topics of understanding cancer pain, exercises to manage pain and psychological strategies to cope with pain. Questionnaires will be administered before and after the program to assess their satisfaction and changes in outcomes related to pain, quality of life, confidence to manage their pain, and use of health care services. The feasibility of implementing the study and the program will be pre-determined by an acceptability criteria for patient recruitment, completion of questionnaires, participation in the online sessions, and satisfaction with the pain management program. It is hoped that study findings will help inform the development of treatment programs to improve post-treatment pain management and the quality of life of survivors of breast cancer patients.