Does pain neuroscience education improve pain knowledge, beliefs and attitudes in undergraduate physiotherapy students?

Background To evaluate the effect of a brief pain neuroscience education (PNE) session on physiotherapy students’ knowledge of pain and their beliefs and attitudes about the treatment of patients with chronic low back pain. Methods This study was a single‐center, cross‐sectional study including 205 physiotherapy undergraduate students. The participants completed the Neurophysiology of Pain Questionnaire (NPQ) and Pain Attitudes and Beliefs Scale for Physiotherapists (PABS‐PT). They then received a 70‐min neuroscience education session covering the mechanisms and biopsychosocial aspects of chronic low back pain. The questionnaires were readministered immediately after the educational session and at 6 months posteducation. Results Our analysis included data from 156 participants (mean age: 20.9 ± 2.51, 69.8% women) who completed the questionnaires pre‐, post‐, and 6 months after the educational session. To assess the effect of the education on the scores of the questionnaires, a repeated‐measures ANOVA was conducted. There was a significant interaction observed for NPQ over time (p = 0.00; η 2 = 0.654), for PABS‐PT factor 1(p