National research project on pain

19 June 2017

Nearly twenty percent of the Dutch population suffers from chronic pain. The costs for society are higher than those of cancer, heart disease and diabetes together. There is still a lot to learn about how pain(sensitivity) works. Therefore, researchers from Radboudumc are going to investigate how pain sensitive the Dutch people are. Together with ‘de Kennis van Nu’ and ‘de Nederlandse organisatie voor Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek (NWO), they launch a National Research Project (GNO=groot nationaal onderzoek) for pain.

Pain that lasts longer than three to six months is called chronic pain. Twenty percent of the Dutch suffer from this. Anesthesiologist-painspecialist Monique Steegers, researcher Esmeralda Blaney Davidson (Radboudumc) and a research team want to know if people who are more sensitive to pain are more likely to have chronic pain and what are the consequences for everyday life. Everybody experiences pain in a different way.

To learn more about the pain sensitivity of the Dutch population in connection with chronic pain, it is therefore important that as many volunteers, with or without pain, as possible participate in this National Research Project. Almost all the pain research so far has been done in hospitals, in patients who already are in a lot of pain. In ‘het Groot Nationaal Onderzoek’, the researchers look at how pain-sensitive Dutch speaking people are, this is measured with an online questionnaire that people can fill in at home or on their mobile devices. With the results, the researchers hope to prevent pain and that this research will contribute to better individualized pain treatment. At the end of November, the first results will be broadcasted. If you also want to know how pain-sensitive you are, go to the website and discover your own pain sensitivity on: www.pijnonderzoek.nl