We are pleased to report that the Pain Research Group at Imperial College has been awarded the British Journal of Anaesthesia and Royal College of Anaesthetists Project Grant to continue investigating pain-related outcomes in the ADVANCE Study.
Many people who experience serious injuries also suffer from long-lasting pain, which can make it harder for them to recover and go back to work. Pain may affect both their body and mind in various ways. We know some things make it more likely for a person to have pain that lasts for a long time. However, we do not have a good understanding of how pain changes over time after an injury or how different factors, like biology, psychology, and social aspects, affect these changes. This is because most studies collecting this type of information follow up with patients for only a short period of time or only at a single point in time.
We want to understand why some people continue to feel pain after their injury. We will look at factors like the injury itself, how it was treated on the battlefield and in the hospital, as well as psychological factors like anxiety and depression. If parts of how their care was managed immediately following their injury are linked to better long-term pain outcomes, we can also use this information to improve trauma care in both military and non-military patients.
The long-term nature of the ADVANCE study also helps us to understand how a change in some factors may lead to a change in pain over time. For example, we know that those with problematic pain after injury are more likely to have depression – we do not know whether those with depression are more likely to develop pain or whether pain makes it more likely for a person to develop depression.
This work will help us to understand more about how these factors are related and we hope this could lead to the development of new treatments targeting these factors.
We would like to say a HUGE thank you to the ADVANCE PPI panel for their input in developing ideas for this project. We look forward to discussing the work with you once it has begun.

Sarah Dixon-Smith
Research Associate, Imperial College London

Harriet Kemp
Clinical Senior Lecturer, Imperial College London