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EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW “The best piece of advice is to always think, ‘How will I help this person today?’ – remembering that they are a person, and that their needs are why you became a health professional.” 14 NEWS IN FOCUS Jarrod McMaugh B. Pharm MPS PRESIDENT OF CHRONIC PAIN AUSTRALIA Marcela Araneda interviews the head of an organisation dedicated to reducing the barriers to living with chronic pain. Jarrod, before we dive into the findings of the most recently conducted National Pain Survey from Chronic Pain Australia (CPA), please share with our readers a little of your professional background. You’re a pharmacist, so how did you become President of Chronic Pain Australia? Yes, I’m a pharmacist with 20 years’ experience. I joined Chronic Pain Australia a number of years ago when the opportunity arose with the board of CPA having a vacancy. I was particularly interested in giving back to the community, and I’d found that contributing to a board of a charity is a great way to do this. For me specifically, I was interested in a charity that addresses stigma, as I’ve seen the impact of stigma as a barrier to healthcare throughout my career. Chronic Pain Australia fits perfectly with that philosophy. As far as the president role is concerned, our founding member took leave from the board after more than a decade of leading the organisation, and the board saw fit to ask me to stand for the role. Considering that stigma remains a big issue for people living with chronic pain, can you tell us about the cohort of participants in this year’s survey? Who are they? Each year we have more than 1000 people who answer the survey. This year we had 1270 respondents from all over Australia and all types of demographics. The respondents were primarily female, although we know that pain affects men to a greater degree than is reflected in our respondents. This is likely a reflection of how men participate in healthcare and discussions about health less than the true rate seen in the population. Our membership consists of thousands of Australians who interact with the organisation and each other in our dedicated closed forum and through our social media profiles, especially Facebook and Twitter. This community provides a safer place to discuss experiences, including stigma, in a manner that makes people feel comfortable. necessarily that these changes have occurred (which has an impact), but the way in which healthcare providers handle the conversations around these changes. Many people have felt singled out, not believed about their pain, questioned in circumstances that are unhelpful, and in some instances openly told that their pain is not real. All health professionals need to ensure they’re mindful that every individual needs to be treated like an individual... and as such, you can’t prejudge their situation, their pain, their requirements, or their existing knowledge about their health. For pharmacists and pharmacy staff, the best piece of advice is to always think, ‘How will I help this person today?’ – remembering that they are a person, and that their needs are why you became a health professional. One thing to keep in mind is privacy: not just the actual surroundings where you discuss a person’s pain, but the perception of those surroundings as well. You might offer to have the discussion in a quieter area of the pharmacy, or even in a consultation room, but this should always be a choice offered to a person, rather than a decision made without their input. As mentioned earlier, stigma seems to be a big issue for people living with chronic pain across the board. Can you explain what this stigma refers to, and in your view how this perception can be transformed? Stigma has multiple impacts on people with chronic pain. The most relevant to pharmacists and pharmacy staff RETAIL PHARMACY • AUG 2020 According to the latest findings, people in pain report a steep worsening in how they feel pharmacists help them manage their pain. In fact, the average score was 4 out of 10, a decrease of 50 per cent from last year’s score, which was 8 out of 10. Why do you think there was such a significant drop, and most importantly, what can pharmacists do to reverse it? This is one of the biggest changes we’ve seen this year, and from speaking to our members it seems the sentiments about pharmacists and general practitioners have been affected by the regulatory changes around medicines – not