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The APS METER Mayday Award – CLOSED

Important Dates

Applications open July 9, 2018 and close September 4, 2018 at 11:59 pm PDT. Grant awards will be announced early November, and funding disbursed for the approximate twelve-month grant period upon satisfactory execution of the grant agreement between the APS and the grant recipient.

Purpose

The METER (MEasurement Tool Evaluation Resource) initiative is the effort of the Measurement of Pain and Its Impact Shared Interest Group (SIG) at the American Pain Society (APS).

The goal of this project is to create, review, and maintain in a systematic manner, a web-based electronic resource of seminal and state-of-the-science pain measures useful for clinical practice, research, and quality improvement – the METER. Measures may be patient-reported, observational, and/or neurophysiological in nature. End-users of the measures would include patients, clinicians, and research professionals, as well as healthcare administrators and policy makers who can access them and be able to have a clear understanding of what each tool measures, how it should be properly used, and how to interpret results. The output will be organized and will be kept up to date by the APS METER Working Group.

Background

Pain is a complex clinical challenge that requires multimodal assessment which is achieved with a number of pain assessment and measurement tools. These tools have been developed and validated to address multiple dimensions of pain across diagnoses and within specific pain conditions (e.g., neuropathic, cancer, low back pain, osteoarthritis) or special populations (e.g., children, older adults, non-verbal populations). The availability of valid and reliable measures of pain are essential for point-of-care decision making, for research to further advance knowledge in the field, and to stimulate quality improvement activities. As there are a multitude of measures for various aspects of the pain experience, a vetted and accessible resource for the public, clinicians, and researchers to identify relevant measures for their purpose would be an asset to the pain community. Information about the reliability, validity, responsiveness, and other characteristics of these tools is dispersed and not easily accessible. This poses a significant challenge for users, including professionals and the general public, some of whom do not know what many of these tools do and how to use them.

Grant Requirements

The winners of the APS METER Mayday Award will be expected to commit one year of service to compiling and synthesizing information on existing measurement tools and work closely with the APS METER Working Group to summarize (using a standard template) existing information on pain measures. Each awardee will be expected to contribute approximately one full review every month with at least 10 pain measurement tools uploaded to the METER web site during their 12-month award period. It is anticipated that between 10 and 20 hours will be required to complete each measurement tool summary. They will also contact the author/owner of each measure for further information and obtain permission to link to the measure from the APS METER website. The working group will provide guidance and editing for each pain measurement review completed by the awardees prior to posting on the website. Each awardee will also be expected to attend the APS annual meeting where they will present a review of the measurement tools they contributed to the METER.

Award winners will receive a stipend of $3,000 and a complimentary APS membership. Up to three applicants may be selected depending on number of meritorious applications received.

Eligibility

To be eligible for an APS-METER Mayday Award, applicants must be an:

  • Early Career Investigator (i.e., trainees such as students and post-docs within five years of completing their doctoral degree); and
  • Not yet been awarded major NIH or foundation grant funding (R01 and/or equivalent);
  • Be able to commit their professional effort to the award for one year.

Grant Obligations

  • Grant Recipient is required to have monthly contact with the APS METER Working Group.
  • Grant Recipient is required to submit interim (every 3-months) progress reports to the APS METER Working Group.
  • Grant Recipient will receive a complimentary APS membership.
  • Grant Recipient is required to submit their final results to the APS METER Working Group to be presented at the APS Scientific SIG Meeting.

Application Requirements

  • Applicant’s contact information
  • Applicant’s CV
  • Applicant’s statement of interest including why they are interested in being selected for this award. Applicants should include skills or experience that make them suitable for this award. In addition, it is useful for the applicant to explain how this project would fit into their career goals to support their expressed interest.
  • Letter of support from academic advisor or current supervisor. The letter must clearly state that the applicant will have at least 20 hours per month to devote to this project.

APS METER Working Group

Miroslav Backonja, MD
Worldwide Clinical Trials, LLC

Yenisel Cruz-Almeida, PhD
University of Florida

Feng Dai, PhD
Yale Center for Analytical Sciences

Robert Edwards, PhD
Brigham & Women’s Hospital

John Farrar, MD PhD
University of Pennsylvania

Elizabeth Felix, PhD
University of Miami Miller School of Medicine

Debra Gordon, DNP RN FAAN
University of Washington