In January 2015 Dr Amy Burton (Senior Lecturer in Health Psychology) delivered a training session for pain management professionals in the Birmingham Community Healthcare (BCHC) Pain Team. The session covered an introduction to culturally competent communication and practical tools to help health care professionals to communicate more effectively with patients from different cultures.

One activity encouraged the attendees to practice the ‘teach-back’ technique involving delivering small chunks of information to the patient and then checking understanding before moving on to additional information. The health care professionals practiced through role play by explaining an everyday concept to a partner – practice examples included: the offside rule, how to bake a cake, and how to ride a motorbike!

The training was well received:

“One of the biggest clinical challenges facing the BCHC pain team is the provision of care to culturally diverse patients. The training delivered by Dr Amy Burton has helped to increase open-mindedness and cultural awareness, as well as enabling the Pain Team to develop its ability to communicate more meaningfully with people from minority backgrounds” (Dr Laura Chipchase, Specialist Health Psychologist in Pain)

The training was informed by Dr Burton’s recent review paper entitled “pain management programmes for non-English-speaking black and minority ethnic groups with long-term or chronic pain” published in Musculoskeletal Care. The health care professionals are now planning to incorporate techniques from the training within their pain management programmes illustrating the direct link between research conducted in the Centre for Health Psychology at Staffordshire University and real world health care practice.