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Educational Video for Acute Musculoskeletal Pain in Adults: 2-Arm Randomized Controlled Trial

P-079 - (Poster #79) Educational Video for Acute Musculoskeletal Pain in Adults: 2-Arm Randomized Controlled Trial

Thursday, September 4, 2025

4:00 PM - 5:30 PM PST

Location: Exhibit Hall (Level 4)

Author/Presenter(s)

LS

Lindsay Stewart, BA

Clinical Research Coordinator
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Chapel Hill, North Carolina
EJ

Emma Johnson, BS

Assistant Clinical Research Coordinator
The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Raleigh, North Carolina
KM

Kevin Musgrow, B.S

Assistant Clinical Research Coordinator
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Medicine - Chapel Hill, NC
Chapel Hill, North Carolina
SN

Sally Ngo, n/a

Clinical Research Assistant
UNC Department of Emergency Medicine
Cary, North Carolina

Background: Early and effective acute musculoskeletal pain (MSP) treatment could reduce progression to chronic MSP. To our knowledge, there are no evidence-based approaches in the acute care setting to optimize patient education about commonly used analgesics or recovery-promoting behaviors. We evaluated an interactive 13-minute educational video regarding pain medication use and behaviors to improve pain recovery in adults with acute MSP presenting to the Emergency Department (ED) or outpatient urgent care (UC).

Purpose/Objectives: We evaluated an interactive 13-minute educational video regarding pain medication use and behaviors to improve pain recovery in adults with acute MSP presenting to the Emergency Department (ED) or outpatient urgent care (UC).

Methods: English-speaking patients ≥18 years old with a chief complaint of MSP (baseline pain intensity ≥4) were randomized after their ED or UC visit to either: 1) guideline-based care or 2) guideline-based care plus educational video intervention. Patients on daily opioids for >2 weeks at the time of enrollment were excluded. Our primary outcome was the Brief Pain Inventory (BPI), an 11-item self-reported pain interference and severity score over the past week ranging from 0 (no interference/pain) to 10 (completely interferes/worst pain). A 1-point difference is considered clinically significant. We compared BPI at 1 and 3 months across arms using a linear mixed model adjusting for setting (ED or UC), baseline pain intensity, opioid use, age, sex, race, and chronic pain history.

Results:

Participants (n=224) had a mean age of 47.2 years; 65% were female, 72% White, and 59.4% had a college degree or higher (educational levels higher than average U.S. population). Mean baseline pain was of moderate severity (5.1, SD: 1.7) and similar in both arms. At 3 months, mean pain had improved in both the guideline-based care and video intervention groups (1.6 vs 1.8). The primary outcome comparing BPI at 1 and 3 months was not statistically significant (p=0.52). Mean BPI differences between video intervention and guideline-based care were -0.10 (95% CI: -0.63, 0.42; p=0.70) at 1 month and 0.20 (95% CI: -0.32, 0.73; p=0.45) at 3 months.

Conclusions/Implications for future research and/or clinical care:

The video intervention results did not show an effect on the primary outcome of pain interference and severity through 3 months. Further work is needed to investigate the value of early patient education to reduce the transition from acute to chronic MSP, particularly among patients with lower levels of education. A subsequent trial could explore a multi-modal approach to pain management beyond education and guideline-based care.