The Pain Management Program at NE Med is interested in collaborating with a student to build a Microsoft Access Database.  The goal is to create a Microsoft Access database, upload the existing data, and use the new database for future data entry.

This is a great opportunity to enhance data management skills. See below for more details, and contact Dr. Watanabe-Galloway if you are interested. 

The Pain Management Program (PMP) is a multidisciplinary, four-week, daylong treatment program, designed to help individuals with chronic non-malignant pain.  Started at UNMC in 1973, it is the second longest running pain program in the country and the only interdisciplinary pain program in the region.  Services are provided in a multidisciplinary format by a clinical psychologist, physical therapist, nurse, and pain physician.  Assessment and treatment services are comprehensive and integrated.  The primary purpose of the program is to help patients cope more effectively with pain-related problems and maximize their functioning.  Treatment involves three components, which occur simultaneously:  physical therapy, medication review (including tapering opiate pain medications), and psychological treatment.

Before patients begin treatment and again at the end of treatment, they complete a variety of paper-and-pencil measures related to pain, depression and level of functioning.  The measures include the Multidimensional Pain Inventory (Rudy, 1989; Turk and Rudy, 1992); Coping Strategies Questionnaire  (Keefe et al., 1987; 1989; Rosenstiel & Keefe, 1983); Pain and Impairment Relationship Scale (Riley, Ahern and Follick, 1988); Survey of Pain Attitudes (Jensen and Karoly, 1991); Pain Locus of Control Scale (Penzien et al., 1989); Beck Depression Inventory; McGill Pain Questionnaire; and a Visual Analog Pain Scale.

This project will involve recreating the existing database in Microsoft Access, specifically, creating the user interface to enter the raw scores, writing the coding to score the tests, and generating a score report.  In addition, we need to export the current database to an Excel file, and then load it into the new database.