There are five reasons why pain education is important:
- Improves Understanding: Pain education provides individuals with a better understanding of how pain works and the factors that contribute to it. This understanding can help people better manage their symptoms, reduce feelings of anxiety, and fear associated with chronic pain.
- Self-empowerment: By providing clients with knowledge about their pain, they can take control of their condition and make informed decisions about their care. Self-management is the most beneficial aspect of pain recovery.
- Reduces Fear: Pain education can help to reduce the fear associated with chronic pain because pain is not a direct reflection of tissue damage, but rather a complex experience that is influenced by many biopsychosocial factors. Pain is a danger signal. If you put your hand on a hot stove, the pain lets you know to move your hand so that you don’t injury yourself further. But sometimes, these danger signals can get activated in the absence of structural damage.
- Adherence to Treatment: Pain education can increase patient adherence to self-management treatments, such as physical therapy, exercise, and mediation practices, by providing patients with a better understanding of why these treatments are important and how they can help to reduce pain.
- Quality of Life: By providing individuals with the tools and knowledge to manage their pain, pain education can improve their quality of life and help them better cope with their condition.
Overall, pain education is an important component of chronic pain management and can play a critical role in improving outcomes for individuals living with chronic pain. Learning about pain decreases the fear of symptoms because you begin to understand that pain does not necessarily mean bodily harm.