Hopkins Hour: Pain: A complex protection system: Participant learnings from the ENGAGE study

Please join us for Hopkins Hour online one hour event on Wednesday 29 July 2026.

The Metro South Pain Rehabilitation Centre runs a six-week Pain Group called ENGAGE. This was previously based on pain education and Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) principles. The clinicians running the programme realised that we had a good theoretical framework describing what we were doing, but we did not have much idea of what was actually important to the participants in the programme and what they learned from it. This study looked at people’s learnings from the ENGAGE group and aimed to change the content to make it more person-centred.

This Hopkins Hour explores the findings of what was important to participants and looks at how ENGAGE has evolved to better meet the needs of people living with chronic pain in our community. We will hear from Michael Deen providing a background about pain education and how it has changed through the years, Kelly Walsh the lead researcher in the study, Elizabeth Dite who lives with chronic pain and was involved in the design and implementation of the study, and Dr Nicholas Aitcheson the Director of the Pain Rehabilitation Centre. Attendees may be surprised by some of the study’s findings and will gain insight into how participant feedback has helped shape and improve the ENGAGE pain program.

Read more about the ENGAGE study here: SEED PROJECT: Making interdisciplinary pain management programs more patient-centred: a qualitative study of patients' perceptions of the ENGAGE pain group - Hopkins Centre

Click HERE to access the Microsoft Teams Webinar.