The iniciative, leaded by the Universitat Rovira i Virgili-Grünenthal Foundation Chair for Child Pain, begins with a survey, now available in 13 languages. The responses will reveal the needs and dificulties they have in receiving treatment

Pain is a warning that something is wrong with the body. Research has shown that people with vision problems are more sensitive to pain and more vigilant to painful stimuli. Studies also indicate that such hypersensitivity and hypervigilance are risk factors for chronic pain.To address the needs of people with blindness and low vision who suffer from pain, the URV-Grünenthal Foundation Chair for Child Pain is leading a three-phase international project. The first fase, currently underway, is a questionnaire aimed to provide a snapshot of the needs of people with blindness and vision problems. The ultimate goal is to find suitable treatments and develop therapies adapted to the needs of this group to improve their quality of life, including mobile applications to facilitate access to the best treatments available.

“We want to find out how many people in this group suffer from chronic pain and develop the best possible treatments, considering the perspective of those who experience the problem first-hand,” says Jordi Miró, who leads the ALGOS research group in the URV’s Department of Psychology and directs the URV-Grünenthal Foundation Chair for Child Pain.

The research group is working on this project “with the hypothesis that we are facing a major problem,” says Miró. In this first phase, the aim is to use a survey to find out what the most common pain problems are, what needs people with blindness and low vision have and what difficulties they encounter when receiving treatment. The answers obtained will enable more precise therapies to be developed in later stages, including mobile applications.

The survey is currently available in 13 languages to reach as wide an audience as possible, and has been designed in collaboration with health professionals and blind people. It is supported by national and international associations of visually impaired people.

URV-Grünenthal Foundation Chair for Child Pain

Under the slogan Research, share, improve, the Grünenthal Foundation and the Universitat Rovira i Virgili created the Chair for Child Pain in 2015 with the aim of improving the quality of life of children and adolescents in pain. This is the first initiative of its kind to be launched in Spain. The Chair carries out numerous activities related to research, knowledge transfer and social awareness, such as training health professionals, designing and developing research programmes, and promoting knowledge about pain and new initiatives to care for children and adolescents with chronic pain.

More information at: Child Pain | Universitat Rovira i Virgili | Algos pain research group | URV-Fundación Grünenthal Chair in Child Pain