This article is part of a captivating series on Sigma members who have recently achieved one of the highest honors in the field of nursing research: induction into Sigma’s International Nurse Researcher Hall of Fame.
My career journey has not been linear or predictable, but it has been shaped by my passion for helping children and youth manage their pain and lead better-quality lives. Now I have the best job in the world, where I get to use my research to address the top research priorities that are important to Canadian youth with chronic pain, their families, and clinicians.
One in five kids suffers from chronic pain
Pain in children is often under-recognized and under-treated, because chronic pain is often invisible. My work is all about making it visible and understood. Chronic pain can have a tremendous negative impact on all aspects of young people’s lives, and if we don’t intervene, more than 60% will go on to have chronic pain as adults.
As a newly graduated nurse, I saw that pain in children was not being assessed or well-managed. What I had learned in nursing school about caring for patients in pain was not being translated into practice—that sparked in me a desire to find a different way to treat pain.
I decided to go back to school for a Master of Nursing degree at the University of Toronto’s Lawrence Bloomberg Faculty of Nursing, for more training in conducting research. As an advanced practice nurse at The Hospital for Sick Children (SickKids), one of my first jobs was on the acute pain service, providing advanced pain care for children after surgery.
I was hooked when I saw the differences nurses could make in the pain care of hospitalized children. It inspired me to become a nurse practitioner, and it motivated me to complete my PhD at the University of Toronto’s Lawrence Bloomberg Faculty of Nursing, where I focused on co-developing the chronic pain program at SickKids. This program has evolved to become the largest and most research-intensive pain clinic in Canada.
I got my dream jobs: senior scientist in SickKids’ Child Health Evaluative Sciences program and nurse practitioner in the hospital’s Chronic Pain Clinic. One of the first things my lab did was conduct a Canada-wide research priority-setting initiative that found most patients and their families want better access to treatments for young people with chronic pain.
Using innovative technologies
At SickKids, one of the ways we envision providing better access to treatments involves developing digital tools to help kids and teens better manage their pain. We created the first smartphone app to track cancer pain called Pain Squad, which uses gamification to encourage kids to complete pain diaries and features actors from popular television shows. We also created an app called iCanCope With Pain. This digital tool features daily check-ins, social support, and personal goal planning with tailored strategies to help with pain and other symptoms.
I am particularly proud of our iPeer2Peer virtual peer mentoring program, where young adults who have successfully moved on to adult care are matched with a teen with the same condition. This program is currently used by a national organization supporting youth with Juvenile Idiopathic Arthritis. During the pandemic, my team also created a one-stop online pain management resource called Power over Pain Portal for Youth, which provides free access to tools like iCanCope, in English and French.
While technology continues to evolve, I am deeply committed to involving diverse patients and their perspectives at every stage of the research process.
Most research takes 17 years or more to make it into the hands of patients. That is a generation of children not benefiting from this work. That is why my lab uses more adaptive trial designs and implementation science methods to rapidly evaluate these innovations and scale and spread them to improve access to pain care. Being a nurse researcher embedded in clinical practice means I can ensure my research discoveries are quickly translated into clinical care, improving outcomes for children and youth—exactly what I dreamed of when I started my nursing career.
Preparing the next generation
Another important aspect of my work is training the next generation of pediatric pain researchers, clinician-scientists, and healthcare professionals. I founded and still lead the Paediatric Project ECHO, an Ontario Ministry of Health-funded initiative that involves mentoring interprofessional community clinicians. This program empowers doctors, nurses, and other professionals with improved knowledge and confidence in the management of medically challenging young patients with chronic pain, medical complexity, obesity, or palliative care needs. As co-director of the SickKids Pain Centre, I lead the Pain in Child Health (PICH) clinical research training program, training the next generation of paediatric pain researchers.
What’s next?
I look forward to more opportunities to use AI and other innovative tools, aligning with SickKids’ Precision Child Health movement. I am currently co-leading a study to pilot an AI-enhanced robot called MEDI to help reduce pain and anxiety among children undergoing acute painful procedures in the emergency department.
Jennifer N. Stinson, PhD, RN-EC, CPNP, FCAHS, FAAN, is a member of the Lambda Pi at-Large Chapter. She is professor and senior scientist at Lawrence Bloomberg Faculty of Nursing, University of Toronto, and Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
