Annual Scientific Meeting Travel Grant Recipient Report

Author name: Nell Norman-Nott

Author biography: Nell is a clinical researcher and a PhD candidate at the School of Psychology, UNSW, Sydney. She is affiliated with the Centre for Pain IMPACT at Neuroscience Research Australia (NeuRA) and is supervised by Prof Sylvia Gustin. Nell’s research is centred around creating a novel internet-based psychological treatment for chronic pain based on dialectical behavioural therapy.

Author contact details: n.normannnott@unsw.edu.au

Report

This was the second Australian Pain Society meeting I have attended, and this year my attendance was possible thanks to the travel grant I received. The grant covered my accommodation and travel expenses to the conference, which would have been difficult for me to manage otherwise.

The conference offered an excellent chance to connect and socialise with fellow researchers and clinicians who are working in the same field. I particularly appreciated the combination of formal presentations and relaxed social opportunities that facilitated networking.

For example, I met Dr Joshua Pate for the first time. I found our interaction fascinating because his area of research focuses on chronic pain in children, which has always been an area of interest for me. Additionally, Dr Pate’s observation during his presentation that children with chronic pain frequently mention negative emotions over physical injury was particularly intriguing to me, given my own research focus on investigating emotions in adults with chronic pain.

I was also fortunate to meet some potential collaborators for our upcoming clinical trial, which will examine a new intervention focused on managing the emotional aspects of chronic pain. I found it particularly intriguing to learn from them how frequently they hear about the significant role that emotions play in their clients’ level of pain intensity.

During my presentation, I discussed my systematic review and meta-analysis that focused on exploring the effectiveness of interventions aimed at regulating emotions in people with chronic pain to reduce both pain intensity and emotional comorbidities. The study’s results indicate that, interventions that enhance emotion regulation significantly lower the intensity of pain and depression, in comparison to usual treatment.

The audience reacted positively to my presentation and posed some thought-provoking questions. In particular, they asked how enhancing emotion regulation can reduce chronic pain, which is a question that our team at the NeuroRecovery Research Hub at UNSW is currently investigating. We believe that since emotional challenges are closely associated with increased chronic pain, acquiring emotion regulation skills might not only enhance emotional well-being but also alleviate pain intensity. This question is at the core of a new research project that we are currently undertaking.

I am looking forward to next year’s conference to connect again with peers, academics, and clinicians.

Declaration: Nell Norman-Nott receives support from various sources for her research, including the Australian Government Research Training Program (RTP) Scholarship (administered by the University of New South Wales), as well as a supplementary scholarship administered by Neuroscience Research Australia (NeuRA). She also receives funding from the NeuRA PhD Pearl Program.