Social and Chronic Pain: Veterans Sharing a Path in Developing a Patient-Centered Response to the COVID-19 Pandemic

The COVID-19 Pandemic limited access to healthcare, engagement in research, and disrupted formal and informal peer and community support systems. As a result, a multistate project using Think Tank Meetings (TTMs) to uncover the needs of veterans experiencing chronic pain was expanded. The expanded project sought to identify factors supporting social engagement, describe COVID-19 pandemic-related dilemmas, and provide recommendations for researchers seeking to engage veterans during times of pandemics and social isolation. The project team used field note templates to summarize veterans’ dialogue during TTMs. Collated summaries were analyzed using open and axial coding. In total 151 veterans and stakeholders participated in TTMs across four US states: Florida, Georgia, New Jersey, and New York. Discussions focused on the following aspects of participants’ pandemic experiences: managing chronic pain, managing social isolation, veterans’ research priorities, and strategies that researchers might use to engage veterans in research during a pandemic. Recommendations for clinical practice, public policy, and future research are presented. Derived from veteran recommendations, a Veteran-Centered Coronavirus Toolkit for Researchers was developed and consists of: (a) field note templates used in this project, (b) veterans’ recommendations for effective researcher-veteran engagement strategies during times of social isolation, (c) a checklist for Veteran-Centered Research Engagement that can guide researchers during times of widespread social isolation, (d) a veteran-generated COVID-19 pandemic Patient-Centered/Comparative Effectiveness research agenda including examples of novel Comparative Effectiveness Research (CER) questions. The researcher toolkit is available at https://nursing.fau.edu/documents/cpaww/val-toolkit.pdf. Information presented in this paper is intended for veterans and key stakeholders to collaboratively engage in chronic-pain-related patient-centered outcomes research and comparative effectiveness research.