Physician perspectives on chronic pain management: barriers and the use of eHealth in the COVID-19 era.

Background: Chronic pain is a highly prevalent and disabling condition which is often undertreated and poorly managed in the community. The emergence of COVID-19 has further complicated pain care, with an increased prevalence of chronic pain and mental health comorbidities, and burnout among physicians. While the pandemic has led to a dramatic increase in virtual health care visits, the uptake of a broader range of eHealth technologies remains unclear.

Race-based reporting and participation of Black individuals in registered pain clinical trials, United States, 2000 to 2019.

There are numerous, well-established racial disparities in the management of pain. The degree to which these are evident at the stage of conducting clinical trials is unknown. To address this knowledge gap, we examined race-based reporting, participation of Black individuals, and the factors associated with reporting and participation in pain clinical trials in the United States.

Insensitivity to Suffering: Psychopathic Traits and Perception of Others' Pain.

Despite growing evidence that psychopathy entails reduced emotional processing, the relationship between psychopathic traits and third-person pain perception is poorly understood. This study directly examined perception of others' pain in a sample of male and female students ( = 105) who completed the Self-Report Psychopathy scale (SRP-III) and the Toronto Empathy Questionnaire (TEQ). Participants watched a video of 60 one-second clips of other people experiencing pain.

Health care providers' judgments in chronic pain: the influence of gender and trustworthiness.

Estimates of patients' pain, and judgments of their pain expression, are affected by characteristics of the observer and of the patient. In this study, we investigated the impact of high or low trustworthiness, a rapid and automatic decision made about another, and of gender and depression history on judgments made by pain clinicians and by medical students. Judges viewed a video of a patient in pain presented with a brief history and rated his or her pain, and the likelihood that it was being exaggerated, minimized, or hidden.

Racial differences in pain treatment and empathy in a Canadian sample.

Background: Evidence of inadequate pain treatment as a result of patient race has been extensively documented, yet remains poorly understood. Previous research has indicated that nonwhite patients are significantly more likely to be undertreated for pain.

Objective: To determine whether previous findings of racial biases in pain treatment recommendations and empathy are generalizable to a sample of Canadian observers and, if so, to determine whether empathy biases mediate the pain treatment disparity.