title: Improving services for back pain: putting the patient at the centre of interprofessional education.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Studies exploring the role of patients in interprofessional education (IPE) are found primarily in undergraduate programmes with few reporting on the postgraduate (continuing professional development) setting. This paper describes an interprofessional quality improvement  project around the management of back pain in a primary care setting where patients were part of the practice team.
  
  
  METHODS
  Patients participated in eight half-day IPE workshops delivered to nine general practice teams in the UK. Educational content included knowledge about quality  improvement and evidence-based back pain knowledge, with teamwork, experiential and didactic learning approaches. On-site practice support from a quality improvement facilitator occurred between the workshops to strengthen practice-based learning. Forty-four practice staff and 11 patients  attended the workshops and the facilitated project meetings. Evaluation occurred through focus groups with practice teams (including patients) both before and after the workshops. These were recorded, transcribed and analysed by coding and the inductive development of themes.
  
  
  RESULTS
  The context of managing back pain was particularly challenging. Focus group participants indicated that patient involvement was highly valued as it gave practitioners a greater understanding of the effects of back pain on their lives whilst permitting patients to hear the experiences of others  and to understand their own world better. Listening was important to patients' experiences of healthcare and practitioners' experiences of the workshops. Learning together emerged as particularly important and finally the challenge of finding time to learn together infiltrated the entire endeavour  and was a prominent concern.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Patients sharing their experience of back pain appeared to be a particularly pivotal point in the learning for practice teams. Meaningful engagement with users in IPE was highly valued and provided a catalyst for behavioural change, where  professionals relinquished an unhelpful medical model in favour of an integrative biopsychosocial one.
authors.affiliation: Faculty of Nursing, University of Calgary, 2800 University Way NW, Calgary, Alberta T2N 1N4, Canada. ecarr@ucalgary.ca
authors.forename: Eloise C J
authors.initials: EC
authors.lastname: Carr
authors.forename: Louise
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Worswick
authors.forename: Peter M
authors.initials: PM
authors.lastname: Wilcock
authors.forename: Charles
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Campion-Smith
authors.forename: Dries
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Hettinga
mesh_terms: D001416:Back Pain / Q000628:therapy*; D004496:Education, Continuing / Q000379:methods; D017144:Focus Groups; D006282:Health Personnel / Q000193:education*; D006801:Humans; D007400:Interprofessional Relations; D010348:Patient Care Team; D010358:Patient Participation; D018802:Patient-Centered Care / Q000458:organization & administration* / Q000592:standards; D036301:Qualitative Research; D011785:Quality Assurance, Health Care / Q000458:organization & administration* / Q000592:standards; D006113:United Kingdom; D000078329:Workforce