The Impact of Pain Neuroscience Education on Physical Therapy Student's Knowledge, Attitudes, Beliefs, and Behaviours Towards Pain

The intervention group will receive a lecture of 70min duration on pain neuroscience. The objective of this educational session is to educate students that pain can be overprotective, and that nociceptive transmission can be heavily influenced by central sensitisation (sensitivity of the central nervous system) as well as the thoughts and beliefs of the individual. The session used drawings, stories and metaphors to depict the underlying neuroscience of pain, and current pain theory.

The control group received an education session of red flags. Red flags form part of routine subjective practice for therapists as a process of screening serious or potentially sinister pathologies. Sign and symptoms for such pathologies include history of cancer, systemic symptoms such as fever or unexplained weight loss, and saddle analgesia. The red flag session will not include the neuroscience of pain.