UPPScAle

The UPPScAle (Undergraduate Physiotherapy Pain Science Augmentation Project) strategic partnership is a powerful transnational collaboration aiming to innovate, improve and standardize Bachelor Physiotherapy pain science curricula across Europe.

There is a need for the exchange of best practices pain science through the development of sustainable products for faculty as well as students. This project is therefore timely, with the right partners and with the right blend of expertise to develop a cadre of highly trained academics capable of addressing current and future needs.

The project will take advantage of the considerable expertise of alle the partners involved to achieve this through the various project activities and outputs can be utilized by academics across Europe.

UPPScAle has three main objectives

• Objective 1: Curriculum bench marking of Bachelor Physiotherapy pain science curricula against international best practice (European Pain Federation EFIC Pain Physiotherapy curriculum) to identify gaps in learning.
• Objective 2: Augmenting knowledge and skills through evidence-based professional practices.
• Objective 3: Enhancing and standardising teaching and learning methodology based on dynamic Open Education Resource that addresses identified limitations to support academics with student learning across Europe and beyond.

17 January 2022 - 16 January 2024

Objective 1: Project partners have completed a mapping matrix, comparing their programmes to international best practices (European Pain Federation EFIC) Pain Physiotherapy curriculum). And a focus group then took place which consisted of academics, student/recent graduates and people living with pain. The focus group utilised De Bono's Six Hats theory. Two posters summarizing work package 1 were presented at the ISCP annual conference in October 2022.

Objective 2: Work package two consisted of a Train-the-Trainer Pain School that took place in Utrecht, the Netherlands in September 2022. A second Pain School will occur in January 2023. Within the Pain School, participants received a comprehensive training manual that focused on areas to improve, identified in work package one. Participants in the week long Pain School engaged in a variety of sessions and lectures on relevant topics.

Objective 3: An open access database, or Open Education Resource, will hold the materials developed for and during the Pain Schools Outputs, that can be accessed by partners and relevant stakeholders. This resource will address identified limitations to support academics.

Harmonising pain knowledge and skills among physiotherapists in Europe.

This project is co-funded by Erasmus+