Disclosures: Amara Nasir, MD: No financial relationships or conflicts of interest

Objective: Digital pain interventions are interventions that use technological platforms such as smart phones, wearable electronic devices, internet, and software to provide a means for pain management including self-care, monitoring, education and behavioral support. There is a paucity of literature about educating trainees in the field of digital pain interventions. In this study, we sought to evaluate Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation (PM&R) trainees’ awareness of digital pain interventions, understand their educational needs, perceived knowledge, value, and opinions towards digital pain interventions.

Design: A Likert scale-format survey was sent to PM&R trainees in the United States via e-mail.Setting : Survey.Participants : PM&R residents.

Interventions: N/A.

Main Outcome Measures: Goals included assessing the awareness, learning methodology, and educational tools required to learn about digital pain interventions.

Results: Of 1389 trainees, 102 responses were returned. 51.7% of individuals who took the survey were between the ages of 20-30. Majority (40%) of participants agreed, and an additional 1% strongly agreed that they were aware of digital pain interventions. There were mixed opinions on the learning methodology: 33% agreed and 5% strongly agreed that learning in a classroom setting is a better way to learn about digital pain interventions when compared to online classes, 35% were neutral, whereas 26% disagreed with this statement. The majority (47% agreed and 36% strongly agreed) of survey-responders agreed that a hands-on approach is a better way of learning when compared to observation.Conclusions: This study provides vital information about PMR trainees’ perspectives on the utility of using digital pain interventions for management of pain. We revealed that the most residents would like to learn more about digital pain interventions. However, we also found that trainees lack knowledge and skills to evaluate and use digital pain intervention technologies. Further research on the specific educational and hands-on training needs of trainees is necessary in this nascent field of digital pain interventions.

Level of Evidence: Level III

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PM&R Meeting Abstracts - https://pmrjabstracts.org/abstract/digital-pain-interventions-education-for-trainees-in-physical-medicine-and-rehabilitation-the-who-the-what-the-how/