A qualitative exploration of the challenges young people face in managing musculoskeletal chronic pain

Musculoskeletal chronic pain (MCP) is a common problem, affecting 25% of young people (aged 12-24) and negatively impacting core aspects of development and daily life including attending school, socialising, and mental health. Effective self-management of MCP can reduce these negative impacts, but young people often find self-management challenging. However, there is a lack of consensus regarding the essential self-management tasks young people need to engage with to effectively manage MCP and a limited understanding of the challenges faced by young people when engaging with these tasks. This project aims to improve understanding of the self-management challenges experienced by young people living with chronic pain by interviewing up to 30 young people with MCP and 15 clinicians to identify key self-management tasks. Following the interviews, workshops with young people with MCP, parents, clinicians and charity representatives working in the area of MCP will be used to co-develop a tool to effectively assess engagement with the identified key self-management tasks.