Table 7 Selected strategies to mitigate potential negative impacts

Facilitate digital access and skills to enable pain self-reporting

 Ability to use digital pain self-reporting tools across platforms (e.g., iOS, android) and devices (e.g., smartphone, tablet, computer)

 Partner with community organisations to facilitate access to the Internet and devices for people who cannot afford a computer, smartphone or data to allow them to submit pain self-reports

 Organise peer support to encourage and help people with using a digital device for pain self-reporting

 Offer helpline support to help people with using digital pain self-reporting tools

Improve the ease-of-use and relevance of pain self-reporting tools

 Offer zoom-in options for people with visual or dexterity impairments to read instructions or interact with digital pain self-reporting tools

 Develop a glossary of culturally attuned pain terminologies for ethnic minority groups

 Enable customisation of notifications and reminders for increasing completeness of pain self-reports

 Add lateral views to manikin-based pain self-reporting tools to enhance accuracy of reporting of pain location

 Enable customisation of a manikin's appearance to align with users’ personal characteristics and preference (e.g., skin tone, gender, body shape)

 Enable reporting of location-specific pain types (such as shooting pain, burning), for example by using pictograms to support diagnosis and assessment of treatment response

Supporting materials to aid completion and interpretation of pain self-reports

 Develop easier to understand written user instructions about how to complete pain self-reports

 Offer pain questions and instructions in other languages rather than in English only

 Develop user instructions about how to complete pain self-reports in non-written formats, e.g., short videos or audio

 Develop guidance or training for patients on how to interpret pain self-reports (e.g., how to distinguish good from bad days)

 Develop guidance or training for healthcare professionals on how to interpret pain self-reports

Building trust in pain reporting and health technology and research

 Build trust in research by explaining how data will be used (e.g., in a within-tool data privacy statement)

 Protect digital devices (especially mobile devices) and applications with a password or biometric authentication to prevent unauthorised access to people’s pain reports

 Enable users to control what part of their pain reports they share and with whom

 Engage with patients and community gatekeepers to communicate how pain self-reports can help them with pain management

 Develop testimonials, posters and case studies to encourage people to use digital pain self-reporting tools