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The International Association for the Study of Pain

A Clinical Network Partnership Supports Healthcare Equity for Adolescents with Sickle Cell Pain: The Comfort Ability in Montreal, Quebec

Symposia

Abstract Description

Children living with sickle cell disease (SCD) regularly encounter acute and chronic pain. Based on the American Society of Hematology 2020 guidelines, non-pharmacological therapies are a suggested treatment for pain, both in adults and children. The Comfort Ability Program for Sickle Cell Pain (CAP-SCP) is a brief, manualized, multi-method learning, clinical intervention designed to introduce cognitive behavioral therapy and biobehavioral pain management skills to adolescents with SCD.  It is currently implemented at 6 US English speaking paediatric hospitals. CHU Sainte-Justine is a tertiary and quaternary paediatric hospital based in Montréal, Canada, where the official and main spoken language is French. Our hematology service follows a SCD paediatric cohort of about 400 patients and lacked systematic integration of psychological pain management skills.  We required an intervention that could be offered in French and the clinical network partnership with the CAP provided the infrastructure to rapidly develop and deploy a French translation of written, audio, and visual materials for CAP-SCP.  This session will discuss the full implementation process of CAP-SCP, including the collaborative program modification process, funding and resource allocation, health professional training, program launch, and qualitative assessment data.   

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