IASP Launches the 2023 Global Year for Integrative Pain Care

IASP has named 2023 the Global Year for Integrative Pain Care. The goal of the Global Year advocacy campaign is to, each year, focus on a special aspect of pain and to increase awareness within the pain community and beyond. In light of the opioid crisis that has affected people in many countries, the aim of this year’s campaign is to increase the awareness of clinicians, scientists, and the public about the use of an integrative pain care approach, which emphasizes non-drug, self-management care. We will further highlight how this approach can be used together to help millions of people suffering from chronic pain around the world.

The theme of the IASP 2023 Global Year for Integrative Pain Care has been chosen:

• Considering the ever-growing burden of chronic pain, it is clear that current models of care used for managing and treating pain are often ineffective in addressing the clinical problem. 
• Since chronic pain is complex and best conceptualized in a bio-psycho-social framework, it is best addressed by integrating different management and treatment approaches.
• Because patient preferences and values are important for treatment adherence and effectiveness, incorporating patient preferences and values with integrative pain care is much easier than unimodal or single-disciplinary approaches.
• On account of the evidence base for individual pain treatment interventions varies considerably and is particularly poor for many non-pharmacological approaches. When it comes to integrating two or more treatment approaches, evidence is extremely scarce. Extensive clinical and translational research is necessary to fill this gap.

IASP defines integrative pain care as temporally coordinated, mechanism-guided, individualized, and evidence-based integration of multiple pain treatment interventions.