Disease Models of Chronic Pain: Ethical Implications for Stigma

Full Title: Attitudes towards disease model explanations of chronic pain among adults without chronic pain: Ethical implications for stigma

Speaker:

Daniel Z. Buchman, PhD, RSW
Bioethicist and Scientist – Centre for Addiction and Mental Health
Associate Professor – Dalla Lana School of Public Health
Joint Center for Bioethics
University of Toronto

Brooke Magel
Research Analyst – Centre for Addiction and Mental Health

Iris Coates McCall
Research Analyst – Centre for Addiction and Mental Health

Abstract

While chronic pain is often considered an invisible condition and a subjective experience, researchers are exploring the potential role of objective brain-based biomarkers of chronic pain to help improve prognosis, diagnosis, and treatment outcomes. Additionally, recent changes to the classification of chronic pain in the ICD-11 has helped to legitimize chronic pain as a disease in itself and not merely as a symptom of another condition. However, disease explanations of chronic pain, including chronic pain as a disease of the brain, may have unintended ethical consequences for stigma. For example, evidence suggests that brain disease explanations of addiction may unintentionally increase stigma. Presently, it is unknown whether brain disease explanations will influence chronic pain stigma similarly. In this presentation, we present the findings from the first aim of our project in which we examined the influence of disease explanations of chronic pain on stigma amongst adults who do not live with chronic pain. Since stigma adversely impacts people with chronic pain, it is of ethical importance to understand whether or not disease framings of chronic pain should guide chronic pain anti-stigma interventions.

Additional Details:

The event is free and is open to the general public.

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Questions?

Please email Terry Yuen, jcb.ea@utoronto.ca.