Chronic (Non-malignant) Musculoskeletal PainDMS-AJANCT03171792
Experience of Chronic (Non-malignant) Musculoskeletal Pain of French Adolescent and Young Adult: a Qualitative Research With Their Physicians and Non-medical Practitioners
An observational study of Chronic (Non-malignant) Musculoskeletal Pain, run by Assistance Publique - Hôpitaux de Paris at 2 sites in France.
Trial summary
The purpose of this study is to explore the perspectives of health professionals on chronic (non-malignant) musculoskeletal pain in adolescence and young adulthood. The prevalence of this pain symptom is rising for ten years, and most of the time the diagnosis is complex. Read more about this study
- Who is it for?
- Ages 25 to 70 years
- Conditions the study is for
- Chronic (Non-malignant) Musculoskeletal Pain
- What is being tested?
- semi-structured interviews
- How many people
- 25 participants
- Where
- 2 sitesFrance
- Study dates
- 21 Sep 2017to 30 Jan 2018
- Phase
- Observational
- Are there results?
- None posted in the registry
Key requirements
Who can take part, as listed by the sponsor. Only the study team can confirm whether you are eligible, so take this list to your doctor.
- Ages 25 to 70 years
- All sexes
- No healthy volunteers
- Adult, Older adult
Study population: The study will concern the health professionals who takes care of adolescents suffering from chronic (non-malignant) musculoskeletal pain. In France, the medical specialities concerned are paediatric medicine, rheumatology, pain medicine, adolescent medicine and psychiatry. The investigators also want to include participants from paramedical fields: physiotherapists, ergotherapists and psychologists. The participants will be selected in the large repository of the professionals working with the French National Reference Center in Paediatric Rheumatology and Inflammatory Diseases
Who may be able to join
- Health care professionals working with the French National Reference in Center Pediatric Rheumatology and Inflammatory Diseases
- Professional experiences on the care of chronic musculoskeletal pain
Who cannot join
- Refusal to participate in the study
Trial locations and contacts
2 sites in 1 country.
France2 sites
Cochin hospital
Paris, Paris, 75014
Necker Hospital
Paris, Paris, 75015
About this study
The purpose of this study is to explore the perspectives of health professionals on chronic (non-malignant) musculoskeletal pain in adolescence and young adulthood. The prevalence of this pain symptom is rising for ten years, and most of the time the diagnosis is complex. Health professionals have to differentiate between the continuing activity of a somatic problem, some painful sequelae, a low threshold for the perception of pain, and psychological symptoms with somatic expression. Diagnosis in this case takes time, and is a matter of trained specialists. No protocol exists to assess the sub-clinical symptoms which will be used to help doing this complex task.
This qualitative study will elicit the perspectives of trained specialists on this diagnosis: how do they deal with these patients? What signs and symptoms helps them? The results will present their clinical experiences. The overall goal is to construct the first chronic musculoskeletal pain multidimensional scale that will help the practitioners with this complex diagnosis.
Read the detailed description
Recent research suggests that musculoskeletal pain may be the most common complaint for which children are referred to a pediatric rheumatologist and is present in approximately 50% of all new patients. A small percentage of these patients will be diagnosed with a form of juvenile idiopathic arthritis (JIA), which is marked by clinically significant pain. A larger percentage will be diagnosed with a musculoskeletal pain syndrome, that approximately 25% of them are chronic and defined as > = 3 months. The chronic pain symptom is a subjective one that professionals have to precise its outlines in term of semiology, nature and efficacity of past treatments, medical and family backgrounds. The professional then will have to pinpoint a diagnosis, while assessing the consequences of the pain and treating it.
Most of the time this task is a complex one and professionals have to build their diagnostic on a body of clinical, paraclinical and more social, familial and psychological evidences. No clear protocol exists to help the professionals with differentiating the continuing activity of a somatic problem, some painful sequelae, a low threshold for the perception of pain, and psychological symptoms with somatic expression. This diagnostic process is lying on sub-clinical symptoms that investigators have to elicit in order to help professionals to better support their patients.
This qualitative study will explore the daily clinical experience of the health professionals involved in the care of adolescents suffering from chronic musculoskeletal pain. Semi-structured interviews will be analyzed with a phenomenological approach (interpretative phenomenological analysis). The rich phenomenological description will be the first step of a more ambitious project of constructing a multidimensional scale that will help the practitioners with this complex diagnosis.
- Being tested
- semi-structured interviews
- Keywords
- Musculoskeletal pain, Adolescent, Qualitative research, Attitude, Health professionals
- Medical subject headings
- Bronchiolitis Obliterans Syndrome, Musculoskeletal Pain, Behavior
What participants receive
What participants receive. In a randomised study each person is assigned to one group by chance.
semi-structured interviewsOther
Semi-structured face to face or telephone interviews with an open-ended approach. Duration: about 45 minutes. Audio-recorded. Exploration of the experience of taking care of the suffering adolescents.
What is being measured
The primary outcome is the main question the study is designed to answer.
Qualitative description of the experience of health professionals faced to adolescents consulting for chronic (non-malignant) musculoskeletal pain
The data collection will consist in health professionals' interviews. All the content of the interviews will be included in the data analysis. The interviews will contain the deepest experience of these professionals in their confrontation of adolescents who present chronic musculoskeletal pain.
Measured: 1 day
Timeline
From the start of the study to its completion; the mark is today. Estimated dates are the sponsor’s plan.
- First posted31 May 2017
- Study start21 Sep 2017
- Primary completion30 Jan 2018
- Study completion30 Jan 2018
Resources
- Official record on ClinicalTrials.govThe registry entry this page is built from, with its full change history.
- Publications (15)Papers the sponsor has linked to this study.
- Other trials for Chronic (Non-malignant) Musculoskeletal PainStudies of the same condition, open and under way.
- More trials run by Assistance Publique - Hôpitaux de ParisThe sponsor's other registered studies.
- What the trial phases meanHow a treatment moves from first tests in people to approval.
More details
For doctors and researchers: how the study is designed, who runs it, and its registry IDs.
Study design
- Study type
- Observational
- Observational model
- Cohort
- Time perspective
- Cross-sectional
- Enrolment
- 25 participants (actual)
Sponsor and investigators
- Lead sponsor
- Assistance Publique - Hôpitaux de Paris
- Sponsor type
- University, hospital or other
- Collaborators
- URC-CIC Paris Descartes Necker Cochin
- Responsible party
- Sponsor
- Investigators
- Pierre QUARTIER, MD, PhD, Study chair, Assistance Publique - Hôpitaux de ParisJonathan LACHAL, MD, PhD, Study chair, Assistance Publique - Hôpitaux de Paris
IDs, dates and publications
- ClinicalTrials.gov ID
- NCT03171792
- Sponsor's protocol ID
- NI16015
- Other IDs
- 2017-A00842-51
- Acronym
- DMS-AJA
- Status last verified
- Sep 2025
- First submitted
- 26 May 2017
- Last updated
- 20 Nov 2025
- Results posted
- No
- Data monitoring committee
- No
- FDA-regulated drug
- No
- FDA-regulated device
- No
- Individual data sharing
- No
Publications
Goodman JE, McGrath PJ. The epidemiology of pain in children and adolescents: a review. Pain. 1991 Sep;46(3):247-264. doi: 10.1016/0304-3959(91)90108-A. No abstract available.
PubMed 1758709De Inocencio J. Epidemiology of musculoskeletal pain in primary care. Arch Dis Child. 2004 May;89(5):431-4. doi: 10.1136/adc.2003.028860.
PubMed 15102634Anthony KK, Schanberg LE. Pediatric pain syndromes and management of pain in children and adolescents with rheumatic disease. Pediatr Clin North Am. 2005 Apr;52(2):611-39, vii. doi: 10.1016/j.pcl.2005.01.003.
PubMed 15820381Petty RE, Southwood TR, Manners P, Baum J, Glass DN, Goldenberg J, He X, Maldonado-Cocco J, Orozco-Alcala J, Prieur AM, Suarez-Almazor ME, Woo P; International League of Associations for Rheumatology. International League of Associations for Rheumatology classification of juvenile idiopathic arthritis: second revision, Edmonton, 2001. J Rheumatol. 2004 Feb;31(2):390-2. No abstract available.
PubMed 14760812Jaremko JL, Liu L, Winn NJ, Ellsworth JE, Lambert RG. Diagnostic utility of magnetic resonance imaging and radiography in juvenile spondyloarthritis: evaluation of the sacroiliac joints in controls and affected subjects. J Rheumatol. 2014 May;41(5):963-70. doi: 10.3899/jrheum.131064. Epub 2014 Mar 15.
PubMed 24634199Bell DS, Bell KM, Cheney PR. Primary juvenile fibromyalgia syndrome and chronic fatigue syndrome in adolescents. Clin Infect Dis. 1994 Jan;18 Suppl 1:S21-3. doi: 10.1093/clinids/18.supplement_1.s21.
PubMed 8148447McGhee JL, Burks FN, Sheckels JL, Jarvis JN. Identifying children with chronic arthritis based on chief complaints: absence of predictive value for musculoskeletal pain as an indicator of rheumatic disease in children. Pediatrics. 2002 Aug;110(2 Pt 1):354-9. doi: 10.1542/peds.110.2.354.
PubMed 12165590Sherry DD, McGuire T, Mellins E, Salmonson K, Wallace CA, Nepom B. Psychosomatic musculoskeletal pain in childhood: clinical and psychological analyses of 100 children. Pediatrics. 1991 Dec;88(6):1093-9.
PubMed 1956724Kashikar-Zuck S, Goldschneider KR, Powers SW, Vaught MH, Hershey AD. Depression and functional disability in chronic pediatric pain. Clin J Pain. 2001 Dec;17(4):341-9. doi: 10.1097/00002508-200112000-00009.
PubMed 11783815- Lachal J, Speranza M, Schmitt A, Spodenkiewicz M, Falissard B, Moro MR, Revah-Levy A. Depression in adolescent from qualitative research to measurement. Adolescent Psychiatry 2012,2(4):296-308.
- Smith J. Interpretative phenomenological analysis. In: Qualitative Psychology: A Practical Guide to Research Methods. 2e éd. Sage Publications Ltd; 2008.
Taieb O, Bricou O, Baubet T, Gaboulaud V, Gal B, Mouthon L, Dhote R, Guillevin L, Rose Moro M. Patients' beliefs about the causes of systemic lupus erythematosus. Rheumatology (Oxford). 2010 Mar;49(3):592-9. doi: 10.1093/rheumatology/kep430. Epub 2009 Dec 29.
PubMed 20040529Smith JA, Michie S, Stephenson M, Quarrell O. Risk Perception and Decision-making Processes in Candidates for Genetic Testing for Huntington's Disease: An Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis. J Health Psychol. 2002 Mar;7(2):131-44. doi: 10.1177/1359105302007002398.
PubMed 22114233Chapman E, Smith JA. Interpretative phenomenological analysis and the new genetics. J Health Psychol. 2002 Mar;7(2):125-30. doi: 10.1177/1359105302007002397.
PubMed 22114232Lefevre H, Loisel A, Meunier BB, Deslandre C, Lemoine N, Moro MR, Quartier P, Lachal J. Chronic idiopathic musculoskeletal pain in youth: a qualitative study. Pediatr Rheumatol Online J. 2019 Dec 27;17(1):86. doi: 10.1186/s12969-019-0389-3.
PubMed 31882011
Study at a glance
From the registry record, last updated by the sponsor on 20 Nov 2025. Recruitment status is as the sponsor reported it: confirm with the study team.
- Official title
- Experience of Chronic (Non-malignant) Musculoskeletal Pain of French Adolescent and Young Adult: a Qualitative Research With Their Physicians and Non-medical Practitioners
- ClinicalTrials.gov ID
- NCT03171792
- Acronym / sponsor ID
- DMS-AJA / NI16015
- Keywords
- Musculoskeletal pain, Adolescent, Qualitative research, Attitude, Health professionals
- Study type
- Observational
- Recruitment status
- Completed
- Enrolment
- 25 participants (actual)
- Lead sponsor
- Assistance Publique - Hôpitaux de ParisUniversity, hospital or other
- Collaborators
- URC-CIC Paris Descartes Necker Cochin
- Study start
- 21 Sep 2017 (actual)
- Primary completion
- 30 Jan 2018 (actual)
- Study completion
- 30 Jan 2018 (actual)
- First posted
- 31 May 2017 (actual)
- Results
- Not posted in the source record
Clinical summary
The research question as the sponsor registered it. This describes what the study plans to test, not what it found.
The purpose of this study is to explore the perspectives of health professionals on chronic (non-malignant) musculoskeletal pain in adolescence and young adulthood. The prevalence of this pain symptom is rising for ten years, and most of the time the diagnosis is complex. Health professionals have to differentiate between the continuing activity of a somatic problem, some painful sequelae, a low threshold for the perception of pain, and psychological symptoms with somatic expression. Diagnosis in this case takes time, and is a matter of trained specialists. No protocol exists to assess the sub-clinical symptoms which will be used to help doing this complex task.
This qualitative study will elicit the perspectives of trained specialists on this diagnosis: how do they deal with these patients? What signs and symptoms helps them? The results will present their clinical experiences. The overall goal is to construct the first chronic musculoskeletal pain multidimensional scale that will help the practitioners with this complex diagnosis.
Detailed description
Recent research suggests that musculoskeletal pain may be the most common complaint for which children are referred to a pediatric rheumatologist and is present in approximately 50% of all new patients. A small percentage of these patients will be diagnosed with a form of juvenile idiopathic arthritis (JIA), which is marked by clinically significant pain. A larger percentage will be diagnosed with a musculoskeletal pain syndrome, that approximately 25% of them are chronic and defined as > = 3 months. The chronic pain symptom is a subjective one that professionals have to precise its outlines in term of semiology, nature and efficacity of past treatments, medical and family backgrounds. The professional then will have to pinpoint a diagnosis, while assessing the consequences of the pain and treating it.
Most of the time this task is a complex one and professionals have to build their diagnostic on a body of clinical, paraclinical and more social, familial and psychological evidences. No clear protocol exists to help the professionals with differentiating the continuing activity of a somatic problem, some painful sequelae, a low threshold for the perception of pain, and psychological symptoms with somatic expression. This diagnostic process is lying on sub-clinical symptoms that investigators have to elicit in order to help professionals to better support their patients.
This qualitative study will explore the daily clinical experience of the health professionals involved in the care of adolescents suffering from chronic musculoskeletal pain. Semi-structured interviews will be analyzed with a phenomenological approach (interpretative phenomenological analysis). The rich phenomenological description will be the first step of a more ambitious project of constructing a multidimensional scale that will help the practitioners with this complex diagnosis.
Study design
- Observational model
- Cohort
- Time perspective
- Cross-sectional
Who may qualify
- Ages
- 25 to 70 years
- Sex
- All
- Healthy volunteers
- Not accepted
- Age groups
- Adult, Older adult
- Study population
- The study will concern the health professionals who takes care of adolescents suffering from chronic (non-malignant) musculoskeletal pain. In France, the medical specialities concerned are paediatric medicine, rheumatology, pain medicine, adolescent medicine and psychiatry. The investigators also want to include participants from paramedical fields: physiotherapists, ergotherapists and psychologists. The participants will be selected in the large repository of the professionals working with the French National Reference Center in Paediatric Rheumatology and Inflammatory Diseases
Key inclusion criteria (2 listed)
- Health care professionals working with the French National Reference in Center Pediatric Rheumatology and Inflammatory Diseases
- Professional experiences on the care of chronic musculoskeletal pain
Key exclusion criteria (1 listed)
- Refusal to participate in the study
Eligibility is decided by the study team after screening; this overview does not establish that a patient qualifies. Full inclusion and exclusion criteria.
Interventions
| Intervention | Type | Arms |
|---|---|---|
| semi-structured interviewsSemi-structured face to face or telephone interviews with an open-ended approach. Duration: about 45 minutes. Audio-recorded. Exploration of the experience of taking care of the suffering adolescents. | Other | – |
Primary outcome
Qualitative description of the experience of health professionals faced to adolescents consulting for chronic (non-malignant) musculoskeletal pain
Time frame: 1 day
The data collection will consist in health professionals' interviews. All the content of the interviews will be included in the data analysis. The interviews will contain the deepest experience of these professionals in their confrontation of adolescents who present chronic musculoskeletal pain.
Results and safety
The study is completed, but results are not available in the source record. That does not mean the treatment did or did not work.
Research links
- Official record on ClinicalTrials.govLast updated by the sponsor 20 Nov 2025.
- Background: PubMed 1758709Goodman JE, McGrath PJ. The epidemiology of pain in children and adolescents: a review. Pain. 1991 Sep;46(3):247-264. doi: 10.1016/0304-3959(91)90108-A. No abstract available.
- Background: PubMed 15102634De Inocencio J. Epidemiology of musculoskeletal pain in primary care. Arch Dis Child. 2004 May;89(5):431-4. doi: 10.1136/adc.2003.028860.
- Background: PubMed 15820381Anthony KK, Schanberg LE. Pediatric pain syndromes and management of pain in children and adolescents with rheumatic disease. Pediatr Clin North Am. 2005 Apr;52(2):611-39, vii. doi: 10.1016/j.pcl.2005.01.003.
- Background: PubMed 14760812Petty RE, Southwood TR, Manners P, Baum J, Glass DN, Goldenberg J, He X, Maldonado-Cocco J, Orozco-Alcala J, Prieur AM, Suarez-Almazor ME, Woo P; International League of Associations for Rheumatology. International League of Associations for Rheumatology classification of juvenile idiopathic arthritis: second revision, Edmonton, 2001. J Rheumatol. 2004 Feb;31(2):390-2. No abstract available.
- Background: PubMed 24634199Jaremko JL, Liu L, Winn NJ, Ellsworth JE, Lambert RG. Diagnostic utility of magnetic resonance imaging and radiography in juvenile spondyloarthritis: evaluation of the sacroiliac joints in controls and affected subjects. J Rheumatol. 2014 May;41(5):963-70. doi: 10.3899/jrheum.131064. Epub 2014 Mar 15.
- Background: PubMed 8148447Bell DS, Bell KM, Cheney PR. Primary juvenile fibromyalgia syndrome and chronic fatigue syndrome in adolescents. Clin Infect Dis. 1994 Jan;18 Suppl 1:S21-3. doi: 10.1093/clinids/18.supplement_1.s21.
- Background: PubMed 12165590McGhee JL, Burks FN, Sheckels JL, Jarvis JN. Identifying children with chronic arthritis based on chief complaints: absence of predictive value for musculoskeletal pain as an indicator of rheumatic disease in children. Pediatrics. 2002 Aug;110(2 Pt 1):354-9. doi: 10.1542/peds.110.2.354.
- Background: PubMed 1956724Sherry DD, McGuire T, Mellins E, Salmonson K, Wallace CA, Nepom B. Psychosomatic musculoskeletal pain in childhood: clinical and psychological analyses of 100 children. Pediatrics. 1991 Dec;88(6):1093-9.
- Background: PubMed 11783815Kashikar-Zuck S, Goldschneider KR, Powers SW, Vaught MH, Hershey AD. Depression and functional disability in chronic pediatric pain. Clin J Pain. 2001 Dec;17(4):341-9. doi: 10.1097/00002508-200112000-00009.
- Background- Lachal J, Speranza M, Schmitt A, Spodenkiewicz M, Falissard B, Moro MR, Revah-Levy A. Depression in adolescent from qualitative research to measurement. Adolescent Psychiatry 2012,2(4):296-308.
- Background- Smith J. Interpretative phenomenological analysis. In: Qualitative Psychology: A Practical Guide to Research Methods. 2e éd. Sage Publications Ltd; 2008.
- Background: PubMed 20040529Taieb O, Bricou O, Baubet T, Gaboulaud V, Gal B, Mouthon L, Dhote R, Guillevin L, Rose Moro M. Patients' beliefs about the causes of systemic lupus erythematosus. Rheumatology (Oxford). 2010 Mar;49(3):592-9. doi: 10.1093/rheumatology/kep430. Epub 2009 Dec 29.
- QSR International. Logiciel NVivo pour la recherche qualitative - de l'analyse de contenu et de l'évaluation jusqu'à l'étude de marché \[Internet\]. 2015 \[cité 30 juill 2015\]Link provided by the sponsor.
- Individual participant dataSharing planned: No
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Referral and contact
AzTrials does not enrol participants or take referrals. Contact the study team or a site listed below; they decide who can take part. This study is not recruiting at the moment.
Pierre QUARTIER, MD, PhD study chair
Assistance Publique - Hôpitaux de Paris
Jonathan LACHAL, MD, PhD study chair
Assistance Publique - Hôpitaux de Paris
2 sites in 1 country: see every site and its status.
Questions about this trial
What is this clinical trial studying?
An observational study of Chronic (Non-malignant) Musculoskeletal Pain, run by Assistance Publique - Hôpitaux de Paris at 2 sites in France.
The full registered description is in the About this study section and the official record.
Who may be eligible to take part?
The sponsor lists 2 inclusion and 1 exclusion criteria. Eligibility is decided by the study team after screening, so read the full criteria and contact a listed site.
Is this clinical trial currently recruiting?
The record says: finished, as of the sponsor's last update on 20 Nov 2025. Status can change between updates, so confirm with the study contact before making plans.
Where is the study taking place?
The record lists 2 sites in France. Whether a site is taking part right now should be confirmed with that site. See every site.
What are the possible benefits and risks?
They depend on the study and the treatment, and no study can promise a benefit. The study team explains the known risks during informed consent, before anyone joins; the record itself does not list them.
Are results available for this study?
The study is completed, but results are not available in the source record. That does not mean the treatment did or did not work.
How can a doctor refer a patient or contact the research team?
The record lists no contact. The official record names the sponsor, who can be asked directly. AzTrials does not enrol participants or take referrals.
What does the primary outcome measure?
Qualitative description of the experience of health professionals faced to adolescents consulting for chronic (non-malignant) musculoskeletal pain (time frame: 1 day). It is what the study was designed to measure, not a finding.
Where can I read the original study information?
On the ClinicalTrials.gov record for NCT03171792, which also lists 15 linked publications.
Does a listing mean the treatment is approved or proven to work?
No. A listing means the study is registered. It does not show that the treatment is safe, works, or is approved by a regulator.
How often is this information updated?
AzTrials copies changed records from ClinicalTrials.gov every night and reloads the whole registry every week. The sponsor last updated this record on 20 Nov 2025.