Improving Communication About Pain and Opioids

The only intervention in the randomized controlled trial (RCT) will be clinician education. This RCT will not directly manipulate or influence patient care. Therefore, this study is minimal risk. The only foreseeable patient risks relate to data confidentiality and privacy. The investigators will recruit approximately 48 primary care clinicians for the pilot RCT. The study goal is to enroll 24 residents and 48 patients (2 patient visits per resident). However, based on previous experience with similar recruitment methods in these clinics, only about 50% of enrolled clinicians will ultimately have visits with study patients. Thus, it will be necessary to over-enroll clinicians because the investigators expect a large proportion of residents will have to be dropped from study due to not seeing any study patients. After enrollment, clinicians will complete a brief questionnaire including demographics and self efficacy regarding communicating with patients about chronic pain and opioids. Randomization assignment will take place after all clinicians have provided informed consent and enrolled, to prevent randomization status from influencing enrollment decisions. Randomization assignment will be done by study personnel after all clinicians have been recruited. Randomization is at the clinician level. Because of the nature of the intervention, it is not possible to blind subjects or investigators to randomization assignment. However, patients will be unaware of clinicians' randomization assignment. Intervention clinicians will complete 2 standardized patient visits during regular clinic time. The first visit will include viewing an 8-10 minute video summarizing the key communication skills, a 10-12 minute roll-play session to practice using these skills, and 8-10 minutes of constructive feedback. The second video will have only roll-play and feedback. Control clinicians will receive a written summary of the 2016 Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) opioid prescribing guidelines which include recommendations for best practices for use of opioids to treat chronic non-cancer pain. To the extent possible, the investigators will use CDC-produced materials for the control group. CDC guidelines will serve as an attention control. Intervention clinicians will complete a brief questionnaire evaluating the intervention. Some time later, enrolled clinicians will see 2 patients who've been screened and enrolled by the research team and who've agreed to allow a previously scheduled visit with pcp to be audio recorded. Data will include the audio recording transcripts, a pre-visit and post-visit patient questionnaire and a clinician post-visit questionnaire. 2 months after each patient's visit, a research assistant will call patients and obtain 2-month follow up data (e.g. Brief Pain Inventory).