'You're kind of left to your own devices': a qualitative focus group study of patients with breast, prostate or blood cancer at a hospital in the South West of England, exploring their engagement with exercise and physical activity during cancer treatment and in the months following standard care.

Objectives: The aim of this study was to explore the experiences of patients with breast, prostate or blood cancer, regarding their (1) engagement with exercise and physical activity during treatment and in the months following standard care, and (2) the meanings attached to these lifestyle behaviours.

Design: A qualitative study using focus groups. The groups were audio recorded, transcribed and analysed using Framework analysis.

The presence of psychological trauma symptoms in resuscitation providers and an exploration of debriefing practices.

Introduction: Witnessing traumatic experiences can cause post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). The true impact on healthcare staff of attending in-hospital cardiac arrests (IHCAs) has not been studied. This cross-sectional study examined cardiac arrest debriefing practices and the burden of attending IHCAs on nursing and medical staff.

Understanding the link between feelings of mental defeat, self-efficacy and the experience of chronic pain.

Objectives: 'Mental defeat' (MD) has been identified among people with chronic pain as a type of self-processing related to social role and rank. Research has linked it to anxiety, pain interference and functional disability. The relationship between MD and other cognitive constructs, such as hopelessness and depression, remains poorly understood.

Situating pain in a more helpful place.

Milton Cohen et al. proposed a revision of the IASP definition of pain of 1979. This commentary summarizes, why this redefinition is necessary, appropriate, and timely.

Better safe than sorry? Frequent attendance in a hospital emergency department: an exploratory study.

Introduction: Pain accounts for the majority of attendances to the Emergency Department (ED), with insufficient alleviation of symptoms resulting in repeated attendance. People who frequently attend the ED are typically considered to be psychologically and socially vulnerable in addition to experiencing health difficulties. This service development study was commissioned to identify the defining characteristics and unmet needs of frequent attenders (FAs) in a UK acute district general hospital ED, with a view to developing strategies to meet the needs of this group.

Interpretative phenomenological analysis as a useful methodology for research on the lived experience of pain.

Interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA) is a qualitative approach which aims to provide detailed examinations of personal lived experience. It produces an account of lived experience in its own terms rather than one prescribed by pre-existing theoretical preconceptions and it recognises that this is an interpretative endeavour as humans are sense-making organisms. It is explicitly idiographic in its commitment to examining the detailed experience of each case in turn, prior to the move to more general claims.

It's not fair: an Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis of discourses of justice and fairness in chronic pain.

Quantitative research suggests that perceiving injustice can impact negatively upon physical and psychological health in chronic pain. However, little is known about the experience and perceptions of injustice in this context. This study examines the phenomenology of justice and injustice in chronic pain.

Assessing the properties of the WHOQOL-Pain: quality of life of chronic low back pain patients during treatment.

Objectives: Assessing subjective, patient-reported outcomes such as quality of life (QoL) is essential to health care research. This study aimed to assess the properties of a QoL measure relating to pain and discomfort: the WHOQOL-Pain.

Method: Chronic low back pain patients (n=133) completed the WHOQOL-Pain, SF-12, and short-form McGill Pain Questionnaire before treatment started and again 2-4 weeks later.

Sex differences in hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis function in patients with chronic pain syndrome.

Chronic pain is often equated with chronic stress yet the relationship between chronic pain and hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis activity is poorly understood. The objective of this study was to examine diurnal functioning of the HPA axis in patients with clinically defined non-inflammatory chronic pain syndrome (CPS) compared to controls. The sample consisted of 37 adults with CPS and 47 healthy controls.

Insights into Pain: A Review of Qualitative Research.

Qualitative research exposes and explores important aspects of the pain experience that are inaccessible to other approaches.Qualitative work adopts a different epistemological and ontological perspective to quantitative work.Qualitative research is not well established in the field of pain, but is growing.

Estimating bottlenose dolphin (Tursiops truncatus) hearing thresholds from single and multiple simultaneous auditory evoked potentials.

Hearing thresholds were estimated in four bottlenose dolphins by measuring auditory evoked responses to single and multiple sinusoidal amplitude modulated tones. Subjects consisted of two males and two females with ages from 4 to 22 years. Testing was conducted in air using a "jawphone" transducer to couple sound into each subject's lower right jaw.

Living with a body separate from the self. The experience of the body in chronic benign low back pain: an interpretative phenomenological analysis.

This paper presents an in-depth, idiographic study exploring the personal experience of chronic benign low back pain in relation to the participant's body and sense of self. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with patients and the resultant transcripts subjected to interpretative phenomenological analysis. One theme is presented in detail: 'Living with a body separate from the self', whereby when out of pain the body has little salience to the self yet when in pain it is consciously excluded from the self.

Being a parent of the adolescent with complex chronic pain: an interpretative phenomenological analysis.

Background: Previous quantitative research has shown that parents of adolescents with chronic pain report elevated levels of emotional distress in addition to limitations in social and family functioning.

Aim: This study aimed to further explore this parental impact by employing qualitative methodology to investigate parental experiences of caring for an adolescent with chronic pain.

Methods: A sample of 17 parents/carers of adolescents with chronic pain was selected from two UK tertiary clinic sites.

Experimental model of fistula-in-ano.

Purpose: This study was designed to create and evaluate an experimental porcine model of fistula-in-ano.

Methods: Initial cadaveric dissection enabled refinement of the technique for fistula formation and histoanatomical study of the porcine anal canal. Subsequently, three surgically created fistulas were treated by seton drainage in each of eight male pigs (weight, 38-41 kg).

Pilot study: fibrin sealant in anal fistula model.

Purpose: The aim of this study was to investigate the failure of fibrin sealant treatment for fistula-in-ano in an experimental porcine model and to determine histologic changes associated with the sealant and setons.

Methods: Three surgically created fistulas were treated by seton drainage in each of eight male pigs. After 26 days, magnetic resonance imaging was performed and setons were removed.

Development of a pain and discomfort module for use with the WHOQOL-100.

Clinicians and researchers have become increasingly interested in the impact of chronic pain (CP) on quality of life (QoL). This report describes the qualitative stages of developing a pain and discomfort module for persons with CP to be used with the UK World Health Organisation generic measure of quality of life (WHOQOL). The aims were to investigate patients' perceptions of CP and its effect on QoL, and to generate items to be used in the development of a module appended to the UK WHOQOL-100.