Increasing patient access to pain medicines around the world:
A framework to improve national policies that govern drug distribution

What is this course about?
Every day throughout the world, millions of adults and children suffer physical pain after accidents, surgery and from chronic diseases like cancer and AIDS. Unrelieved pain can have devastating effects on quality of life. Although there are many drug and non-drug ways to treat pain, opioid analgesics play an essential role in relieving moderate to severe pain. However, most of the world’s population lacks access to opioid medications, especially in low- and middle-income countries and in some developed countries as well.

This course is about the relationship between government policies that affect the medical availability of opioid analgesics and patients who experience moderate to severe pain. It is critically important for health care professionals and government drug regulators as well as advocates involved in the area of palliative care and pain relief to understand the government policies that control opioid analgesics and how they can impact medication availability and patient access to opioid analgesics.

Who should take this course?
The course is aimed at health care professionals, government administrators, drug regulatory personnel, national health policy advisors, and health policy scholars.

How is the course organized?
The course has 7 lessons each with required readings. The content presented in each lesson builds on the content from previous lessons. Content presented in later lessons is presented in such a way that presumes you have been introduced to concepts from earlier lessons and readings. Therefore, we strongly recommend that you complete the lessons in order.

How will I be evaluated?
Each lesson has a pretest and posttest. The questions are drawn from the material in the lesson and the required readings. The pretest questions are designed to help you evaluate your current awareness of the course content. After you have completed the lesson, you will be required to take the posttest. If you answer incorrectly on the posttest questions, you will have the opportunity to re-take the posttest until you get 80% of the answers correct.

What can I earn for taking this course?
Upon successful completion of the course you will receive (via email) a certificate of completion with your name and the date. To earn a certificate, you must complete the demographic survey, the course evaluation, all pretests and also answer 80% or more of the questions on the posttests correctly. However, this is a non-credit course and you will not earn credit towards a degree program or continuing professional education credits.

If you complete the requirements, you will be issued a temporary certificate and within a few weeks of your completion of the course, the Pain & Policy Studies Group will email your official certificate (in PDF format). Please note that the certificate will be sent to the email address that you use when you register for the course.

What are the technical requirements to take this course?
This course requires periods of uninterrupted connectivity to the internet. For example, you will need to be connected to the internet to submit your responses on the pretests and posttests. However, the readings and lesson content can be downloaded or printed to be read off-line.

Follow this link to register for the course:
https://painpolicy.bcg.wisc.edu

Citation

Excerpts from this course may be quoted with the following citation:

Support

The development of this course was supported by the National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization and the Foundation for Hospices in Sub-Saharan Africa.