Understanding barriers and enablers impacting health professionals' current practice of pain management for patients with pancreatic cancer

**$5,000 Scholarship on Offer to Successful Honours Candidate** Optimal pain management is a critical but often unmet need for people with pancreatic cancer (PC), with around 75% of patients presenting with significant abdominal and/or back pain, often due to tumour invasion into the coeliac nerve plexus (CNP). Such pain can be severe, relentless, and debilitating, despite the use of opioid analgesics; this markedly impairs patients’ quality of life (QOL). Thus, providing rapid and ongoing access to effective pain management strategies is critical. In general, pharmacological management is the mainstay of treatment, involving combinations of non-opioid and opioid analgesics with dose escalation according to response. For some patients this approach is effective. However, a significant minority will continue to have poorly controlled pain and/or intolerable side effects from these analgesics, raising the need for alternative approaches. A CNP block has been shown to significantly improve pain management and to delay and/or reduce the use of high doses of opioids for people with PC, improving patients’ QOL. Despite the prevalence of pain in patients with PC, and the severe adverse sequelae, pathways guiding effective pain management, including early access to CNP, are not widely available. Project Aims: A qualitative study will be undertaken to identify the barriers and enablers to pain management in patients with PC. The following research questions will be explored with healthcare professionals (HPs): • How would HPs describe their current approach to pain management in patients with PC? • What pain management interventions are HPs aware of and what is available at their hospital site? Under what circumstances are interventional approaches considered? • What do HPs perceive as the barriers and enablers to different pain management interventions for patients with PC? The project will involve: 1) Focus groups with 10-15 HPs will be conducted to inform development of a multidisciplinary interview schedule, which will be guided by the Theoretical Domains Framework (TDF). 2) Semi-structured interviews with 10-15 key stakeholders will be undertaken to explore barriers and enablers to pain management in PC. 3) Thematic analysis of qualitative data will be guided by the TDF, and the results used to identify common barriers, and develop subsequent strategies that can facilitate the implementation of clinical pathways into routine practice. **$5,000 Scholarship on Offer to Successful Honours Candidate**