Understanding long-term opioid treatment to patients with chronic non-cancer pain in order to develop a method that promotes proper treatment.

This research project is part of a doctoral project by Elsa Ekelin. The first sub-study, published in 2018, investigated GPs’ experience of renewing prescriptions for weak opioids without any relation to a doctor’s visit (Ekelin and Hansson, 2018).

The second sub-study explores the communication between GPs and patients with long-term pain who are treated with opioids. Doctor’s visits are videotaped and afterwards the patient is interviewed over the phone and the doctor is interviewed using stimulated recall. In collaboration with doctoral student Jennifer Amin and Sofia Bergbom, the patient’s experiences of the consultation have been analyzed and are now published (Amin et al., 2026).

Publications

Ekelin, E., & Hansson, A. (2018). The dilemma of repeat weak opioid prescriptions–experiences from Swedish GPs. Scandinavian journal of primary health care, 36(2), 180-188.