Background
Pain is an expected and appropriate experience that usually follows a traumatic injury. By contrast, chronic pain and disability are unhelpful but common sequelae of trauma-related injuries. Gaining an understanding of why some people develop chronic and disabling post-traumatic pain is, therefore, a priority for individual patients, the military and society at large. The mechanisms that underlie the transition from acute to chronic disabling post-traumatic pain are not fully understood. Such knowledge would facilitate the development and implementation of a clinical pathway of care that matches interventions to the projected risk of poor recovery, with the aim of preventing poor long-term outcomes.
Method
The research team are recruiting two temporally staggered cohorts of patients with trauma. The first cohort will facilitate the development of the prediction model to inform the screening tool, and the second will enable validation of the prediction model through an evaluation of the predictive performance of the model and tool.
Self-reported and physical assessment predictive data will be collected at baseline over a period of up to 14 days, which commences immediately following recruitment. Biomarker data collection occurs throughout the same baseline period. The outcome data will be collected at 6 months post-injury, the point of evaluation of an individual’s absolute risk of poor outcome. In addition, selected data will be measured at 3 and 12 months post-injury to explore the clinical course of recovery following injury in shorter and longer terms.
