Stakeholder involvement

The group discussion took place on February 7, 2023, at 5 pm in a room in the FH Vorarlberg. Participants have been:

• medical doctor (medical doctor palliative care), responsible for a palliative care ward in an acute care hospital.
• medical doctor and anaesthetists (medical doctor / lecturer) in the role of a lecturer in the bachelor’s degree programme in Health Care at the FH Vorarlberg. 
• student Bachelor of Health Care at the FH Vorarlberg (nursing student).
• lecturer with a focus on palliative care at the FH Vorarlberg (nursing lecturer).
• patient with acute pain experiences (at the same time lecturer at the FH Vorarlberg) (pwp).
• family member whose daughter is a pain patient (family member).
• nurse (B.Sc.), on a medical ward (at the same time also lecturer in the bachelor's degree program Healthcare at the FH Vorarlberg) (nurse).

Following the general introduction to the European project TECH2MATCH, informed consent was taken and then the various technical approaches which play a role in pain management (apps, virtual reality, and telehealth) were demonstrated. The discussion following was lively, covering many different aspects and a few questions had been asked by the moderator for clarification and summary. All participants subsequently confirmed their wish to continue participating in another group discussion and gave positive feedback about the event either orally or in writing. One doctor invited the FH Vorarlberg to the palliative care ward asking for demonstration of virtual reality in the context of pain management. He was positively surprised by the group's discussion and wanted to introduce the topic on a lower level to his colleagues. 

The focus group interview with the stakeholder group for TECH2MATCH in Denmark took place February 27, 2023, at University College North Denmark – Selma Lagerløfs Vej 2, Aalborg.

The agenda for the stakeholder group:

• Welcome to the stakeholder group interview for TECH2MATCH
• Brief presentation of the participants in the stakeholder group
• Brief presentation of the purpose of the project and the stakeholder meeting
• The focus group interview
• Conclusion and evaluation – coffee
• Time frame from 15.00 to 17.00.

Participants in the group:

• Student at the midwife program at UCN (late part of the program).
• Student at the midwife program at UCN (first part of the program).
• Lecturer with a focus on rehabilitation work for people with pain at UCN (Occupational therapy Program. Lecturer).
• Practicing midwife employed at the local hospital
• Newly employed lecturer at the midwife program at UCN (Trained midwife)

Participant who did not participate:

• Patient with acute pain experiences
• Lecturer with a focus on pain in rehabilitation (Physiotherapist program).

Points and experiences:
Different experiences with different kinds of technologies emerged during the interview. And all the participants were very interested in gaining new knowledge and experience with different types of technologies. The students were very interested in gaining experience and concrete technological competences to be able to meet the expectations they had with the practical work in the education. All participants wish to continue in this stakeholder group.

The focus group interview took place in SeAMK on February 22, 2023. Everyone, who has been invited, was able to participate. There were two patients with pain and their relatives, nursing and physiotherapy professionals and students. Two lecturers from SeAMK, who have experience in health care technology, participated in the interview as well. All together ten participants attended and the interviewers. Project group members Katriina and Sanna took over the interview after a short presentation of the project.

In the afternoon, the group discussed about the following two themes:

• What kind of experiences do you have with technological aids used in pain management?
• What kind of skills and competences will healthcare professionals need in the future in relation to health technology solutions for pain management?

The group worked well together, and there were a lot of interesting issues arising from the questions:

• What is the role of technology nowadays in healthcare?
• How can we learn technological skills needed in healthcare?

The focus group was carried out on February 23, 2023, at 4 pm in the Faculty of Physiotherapy and Nursery of Toledo. It was a face-to-face meeting and had a duration of 2 hours. The stakeholder group was composed of 10 participants: a lecturer of Physiotherapy and a lecturer of Nursery; a undergraduate student of Physiotherapy and a predoctoral student; 2 Physiotherapists with experience in spinal cord injury and orthopedics and musculoskeletal disorders; 2 patients with pain (neuropathic pain and chronic pain) and their relatives.

Professors and clinical professionals showed the need for experience and clinical reasoning for personalized therapies. Students exposed the need for pain technological knowledge. Patients and relatives provided the essential point of view regarding the needs for information, advice and guidance, as well as social skills on the part of health professionals.

All participants contributed to the focus group and the discussion was fluent. They reported positive feelings at the end of the meeting.

In relation to task 3.2, FHV held a stakeholder group workshop on July 20, 2023, from 17:00- 19:00. The workshop was designed to ensure that the content of the blended learning and real-life scenarios would be relevant, useful, and applicable and assist in the development of the relevant frameworks. Participants were asked to participate in a workshop consisting of two exercises. The first focused on Blended Learning and the second on Real-Life Scenarios.

Summary of feedback: Blended learning

The framework for blended learning must include: an in-depth explanation of pain, pain treatments and pharmacology; assessments should be wide ranging to ensure appropriate matching with available technologies and there should be continuous methods of monitoring both effectiveness of pain treatment and the technology which is being used. 1. Real-Life Scenarios

Summary of feedback: Real-life scenarios

For real-life scenarios, participants had begun to match some technology with the situations they described. The framework should link these real-life scenarios with suggestions for how these situations could be managed with technology to improve the experiences of people with pain.

Conclusion

Following the workshops, it was possible to build up a preliminary framework structure which incorporated the suggestions of the participants.

In relation to task 3.3, a survey was created by the partners. FHV distributed the questionnaires to pedagogical experts (Lecturers in the stakeholder group and in the Centre for Lifelong Learning (FHV)). These responses were then reviewed and considered with respect to the Framework for teaching the lecturers. Their suggestions included adding a tools to foster engagement and ensuring good bridges to practice.

Stakeholder involvement at UCN during WP3 was carried out during task 3.2 and task 3.3. The first example of stakeholder involvement at UCN in WP3 relates to task 3.2. Here, the stakeholders contributed with feedback and perspectives on the two teaching approaches Blended Learning and Real-life scenarios. All stakeholders were invited to participate in a focus group and received information beforehand on the two teaching approaches, consisting of best practice examples identified by the consortium in task 3.1. A semistructured guide guided the focus group, transcribed, and thematically analyzed.

In task 3.3, two examples of stakeholder involvement were carried out simultaneously. A focus group interview was carried out involving lecturers from healthcare education. The interview focused on a discussion of the framework developed to prepare future lecturers to teach the TECH2MATCH course. The participating lecturers were from the already established stakeholder group and were invited based on a purposive sampling.

Furthermore, a survey was distributed, using SurveyXact, among all members of the stakeholder group. The survey content contained questions related to experiences with using MOOCs and considerations related to planning an xMOOC. All survey questions were developed by the respective task leader and applied primarily a Likert scale and open-ended questions. A translation from English to Danish was carried out before forwarding the survey to all stakeholders affiliated with the TECH2MATCH project at UCN.

The stakeholder involvement contributed with main themes of relevance for both blended learning and real-life scenarios, highligthed by the participants. Collaboration among peers and lecturers, the importance of communication in the learning proces and a sound theoretical foundation were all themes emphasized by the stakeholders. Furthermore, the stakeholder group considered real-life scenarios as a highly effective way of learning students about the use of technology in PwP.

The focus group meeting took place in SeAMK on August 24, 2023. Participants from the previous group interview were invited to the stakeholder group meeting. About a week before the interview, an official invitation was sent to the participants by e-mail. The discussion was based on voluntary participation. There were eight participants in the discussion: healthcare teachers (2 persons), healthcare professionals (a nurse and a physiotherapist), a nursing student, pain patients (2 persons) and relative of pain patient. Project group members described the current situation of the project. A short PowerPoint presentation about the discussion's themes was used for orientation. Discussion consisted of two parts.

In the first part of discussion the participants described what should be taught to the health care student about the pain. These keywords were written on the whiteboard during discussion. After this discussion the main themes were built together from keywords. These main themes were the most relevant content to be taught to health care students according to stakeholder groups' point of view.

In the second part, the original plan was to divide the group into two: one group would include healthcare teachers and students, other group healthcare professionals, pain patients and relatives of pain patients. Because the first part discussion was very productive, the project group decided to continue discussion in one group. In the second part discussion consists of how these raised themes should be taught. The discussion went well, and it was active and rich. The discussion lasted around two hours.

This work package had two objectives: a) for teachers, to design how to prepare teachers for the task of teaching a new course, with an already developed content and pedagogical framework b) for stakeholders, to discuss the development of the framework for xMOOC (Extended Massive Open Online Course).

On the one hand, the teachers' stakeholder group results highlighted the importance of the course organization (schedule, number of modules, objectives, etc). The importance of the participants in the "teach the teachers" course gaining practical experience with the relevant technologies was highlighted. None of the stakeholders felt it necessary to engage in transnational collaboration during the course. Instead, they felt that collaboration with other teachers involved in the course would be problematic if communication was in a non-native language.

On the other hand, the results with stakeholders, declared they having participated in more than 6 MOOCs, considering that they had technical and conceptual knowledge about MOOCs. Regarding the aspects to be taken into account, they fully agreed that "statistics on completion and dropout rates are collected", "the course can be delivered in the participants' mother tongue", "participants receive certificates of participation and attendance". In addition, other important aspects were that the course should be accessible from computers and mobile phones, the % of the course completed should be displayed and delivery dates should be easily identified. Regarding communication and collaboration between teachers and participants, the majority strongly agreed that "the course should include live teaching sessions such as webinars", and strongly agreed that "feedback from teachers on assignments and work completed" and "communication with other participants should be part of the course".

Finally, the participants considered that the following tools could facilitate participation in the online course: collaboration among students, creation of forums by subject, collaborative work, communication with students, webinar/video resources, online chats, forums, feedback on the correction of assignments and tests, multiple choice questions for continuous evaluation during the course, exchange of students between universities for "ERASMUS" type exchange and seminars or online meetings with other countries to discuss knowledge.

After creating the outline of the course, a survey was forwarded to the Austrian stakeholder group at the beginning of May 2024. Based on the guidelines provided by UCLM, the material was created to guide the stakeholders. The material consisted of a content overview of the general pain introduction and the Virtual Reality module. The didactic rationale of each section was shortly described, followed by the content covered and the potential learning outcomes. Additionally, we provided an overview of which media and tools are planned to be used for each section. Stakeholders were invited to comment on each part directly and/or answer some open questions at the end where they could state any aspects missing and improvements needed.

Two lecturers answered the survey; they highlighted the importance of interactive learning content, practical exercises, and covering a diverse group of patients (different ages, pain types, etc.).

To improve the "Teaching the teachers" guide, an email was sent at the end of October 2024 to all Austrian stakeholders who were lecturers. In the email, we asked the stakeholders to respond to 9 survey questions related directly to the content overview of the “Teaching Guide” module, which they also received via email. Each question consisted of a Likert scale: 1 (Not relevant) - 5 (Highly relevant) and an open box where they could write any “additional comments”.

Two out of three lecturers responded and suggested shortening the first pages as well as providing a pool of real-life scenarios and precise set-up plans for practical exercises with different technologies.

Stakeholder involvement in WP4, was by UCN, carried out through two surveys.

The first survey involved a large group of stakeholders: lecturers, students, and healthcare professionals. The project partner from UCLM provided the guidelines for the material we used, and the primary focus of the stakeholder group from UCLM was on the Mobile Application Unit. The aim of the survey was to get stakeholder input related to the content of the Mobile Application Unit, on relevant concepts not being addressed, areas of importance missing from the content, and suggestions for further improvements.

The feedback from the stakeholders led to changes in the amount of patient perspective incorporated into the unit. Otherwise, stakeholders provided positive feedback on the content, and especially the case description and use of video was highlighted as bringing the whole setup to life.

The second survey involved only the members of the stakeholder group who were lecturers. The reason was that the focus of the survey was on the material developed specifically aimed at supporting lecturers in engaging with the course and implementing the course at their respective educational institutions. Overall, the content of the developed material was evaluated as relevant. The main issue identified was the extensive nature of the material, which the stakeholders found challenging. Specific suggestions on how to reduce the extensiveness of the material were provided.

Stakeholder involvement for task 4.1. The Stakeholders Group in SeAMK gave feedback by email regarding course material. We got feedback about the introduction part from one teacher and one pain patient. The teacher agreed with the specific sections and concepts. They are important in pain management, but there is quite a lot of deep information, and it is quite demanding on the 1 credit part of the study module in the introduction part. There were not any critical areas which are missing.

There was also a Webropol survey to be answered about teaching the teacher's material in task 4.2. The survey was emailed to the stakeholder group on the 28th of November, 2024. The stakeholder group consisted of 4 participants: 3 lecturers (healthcare) and 1 development manager (wellbeing technology). Stakeholders were provided with teaching material before answering the survey. The response rate was 75%.

The survey consisted of a content overview of the “Teaching Guide” module and eleven questions; these questions had 2 parts. The first part is a Likert scale of 1 (Not relevant) - 5 (Highly relevant), and the second part is an open box with an “additional comments” headline.

The results showed that the stakeholders group considered the course material at least relevant for this course. There was one comment in the open-ended comment box: “The course materials are highly relevant for the teachers, but hopefully, the course material for the student groups can be more practical and easy to follow.”

The two stakeholder meetings held in Spain under the TECH2MATCH project focused on refining course content and teaching strategies. Below is a summary of each:

First Stakeholder Meeting

This meeting addressed the "Introduction to TECH2MATCH Course and Pain Basics" module and the "Monitoring Technology" module. Participants, including lecturers, clinicians, and students, provided valuable insights. Suggestions included adding a section on "Terminology or basic concepts related to pain" and integrating "Patient Education" to improve communication skills with patients. For the "Monitoring Technology" module, stakeholders recommended introducing practical activities like comparing traditional and modern technologies, creating tutorial videos, and developing patient support plans. These changes aimed to enhance the modules' comprehensiveness and applicability to clinical practice.

Second Stakeholder Meeting

The second meeting evaluated the "TECH2MATCH Teaching Guide" with stakeholders, including lecturers, professionals, a patient, and a student. Feedback was gathered through a structured Likert scale and open comments. High relevance scores were assigned to reflective practice-based learning, blended learning approaches, and real-life scenarios. Lecturers emphasized the importance of digital competencies and practical applications, while professionals highlighted the value of real-life scenarios for clinical development. The patient appreciated the inclusion of practical methods but found certain details less applicable to non-clinical perspectives. Students were motivated by the course's integration of theory and practice. Recommendations included tailoring content to specific disciplines to increase relevance.

Overall, the stakeholder meetings provided actionable recommendations to align course content and methodology with the diverse needs of participants.