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Integrative Pain Care

This year’s theme focuses on raising awareness about integrative pain care and illustrating the knowns and unknowns of this important topic via different initiatives, including a fact sheet series and several webinars.


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IASP 2023 Global Year for Integrative Pain Care

Global Year focuses on a special aspect of pain to increase awareness within the pain community and beyond. The 2023 Global Year aims to raise awareness about integrative pain care and illustrate the knowns and unknowns of this important topic via different initiatives, including a fact sheet series and several webinars. 


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Letter from the President

IASP has named 2023 the Global Year for Integrative Pain Care. The goal of the Global Year advocacy campaign is to, each year, focus on a special aspect of pain and to increase awareness within the pain community and beyond. In light of the opioid crisis that has affected people in many countries, the aim of this year’s campaign is to increase the awareness of clinicians, scientists, and the public about the use of an integrative pain care approach, which emphasizes non-drug, self-management care. We will further highlight how this approach can be used together to help millions of people suffering from chronic pain around the world. 

One of the goals of the 2023 Global Year initiative is to clearly define what we mean by “Integrative Pain Care.” Another goal is to examine how various healthcare models can be integrated into a comprehensive pain care plan. Finally, we will appraise the quality of evidence for various non-drug approaches to pain care, either provided alone or in combination with other approaches.

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Aims and Objectives

The theme of the IASP 2023 Global Year for Integrative Pain Care has been chosen:

  • Considering the ever-growing burden of chronic pain, it is clear that current models of care used for managing and treating pain are often ineffective in addressing the clinical problem. 
  • Since chronic pain is complex and best conceptualized in a bio-psycho-social framework, it is best addressed by integrating different management and treatment approaches.
  • Because patient preferences and values are important for treatment adherence and effectiveness, incorporating patient preferences and values with integrative pain care is much easier than unimodal or single-disciplinary approaches.
  • On account of the evidence base for individual pain treatment interventions varies considerably and is particularly poor for many non-pharmacological approaches. When it comes to integrating two or more treatment approaches, evidence is extremely scarce. Extensive clinical and translational research is necessary to fill this gap.

IASP defines integrative pain care as temporally coordinated, mechanism-guided, individualized, and evidence-based integration of multiple pain treatment interventions.

The 2023 Global Year for Integrative Pain Care aims to raise awareness about this important topic and illustrate the knowns and unknowns of integrative pain care via different initiatives, including a fact sheet series and several webinars.

Featured Resources

PAIN Collection for the IASP 2023 Global Year for Integrative Pain Care

Read relevant articles from issues of PAIN about integrative pain care.

Browse the collection >

Join the Global Year Conversation

Use #GlobalYear2023 on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram to be part of the conversation. 

Webinars

2023 Global Year Webinars

Two webinars explored integrative pain care as part of the 2023 Global Year. 

  • What is Integrative Medicine?
    This IASP 2023 Global Year webinar, hosted on 10 October 2023, explored the foundational question, "What is Integrative Medicine?"
  • Traditional Approaches for Chronic Pain
    This Iasp 2023 Global Year Webinar, hosted on 8 January 2024, focused on traditional medicine practices across Asia as examples of non-Western approaches.
16 May Webinar
Video Series

2023 Global Year Video Series

As part of the 2023 Global Year for Integrative Pain Care, ISAP will release multiple video series on integrative pain care coordinated by Heather Tick of the Center for Pain Relief at the University of Washington in Seattle.

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Global Year Volunteers

Global Year Task Force

Meet the multidisciplinary team of IASP volunteers that oversees the 2023 Global Year for Integrative Pain Care.

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PREVIOUS GLOBAL YEARS

Previous Global Years

Access previous global year campaigns and relevant fact sheets, interviews, and more resources.

Learn More >