Overarching themes from integration of qualitative and quantitative data
chronic pain, pain
CHRONIC PAIN
Analyses revealed threads across the qualitative and quantitative data which generated four main overarching themes: (1) the right time, (2) the backdrop of life with chronic pain, (3) needing support and (4) the group effect.The right time. This theme encompasses evidence indicating whether someone is ready to change, including enablers or barriers to tapering and whether participants felt fully informed, motivated and confident to be able to taper.Life with chronic pain is often complex with many having multiple health problems and medications. This means that participants were living life around their pain, pain relief, healthcare appointments and procedures as well as social and family commitments. Each of these could affect their decision about when or whether to taper.Support is needed at all phases of tapering. This could come from their family, GP or from a tapering intervention such as I-WOTCH which agreed a tailored tapering programme. If family members or their GPs were ambivalent or against tapering, people were less keen to try it.The group effect allowed for people taking opioid medication to come together to gain more information and skills in pain management as well as choosing whether to start on a tapering path as a joint group goal. They were given the opportunity to discuss and explore their fears and motivations about decreasing their medication.The interaction between the overarching themes can be seen in our model. See Conceptual model of overarching themes. I-WOTCH, Improving the Wellbeing of people with Opioid Treated CHronic pain.