Teaching the Brain to Ease the Pain: A Neuroscience-Based Pain Education for Amateur Athletes

Abstract

Objective: This study aimed to examine the effects of pain neuroscience education (PNE) on pain intensity, pain knowledge, fear of movement, and pain catastrophizing in amateur athletes with chronic pain. Methods: This single-group, pretest-posttest quasi-experimental study was conducted through face-to-face interviews between March and June 2025 with 66 amateur athletes studying at the Faculty of Sport Sciences, Muş Alparslan University. Demographic information (age, gender, educational status, history of chronic disease, history of falls, etc.) was collected using a structured information form. Pain intensity, pain neurophysiology knowledge, fear of movement, and pain catastrophizing were assessed using the Visual Analog Scale (VAS), the Revised Neurophysiology of Pain Questionnaire, the Tampa Scale of Kinesiophobia, and the Pain Catastrophizing Scale, respectively. Participants, divided into groups of 20, attended a PNE program defined by David Butler, held twice weekly for 6 weeks, with each session lasting approximately 45 minutes. Results: The participants' mean age was 21.05 ± 2.97 years (18-36), mean body mass index was 21.34 ± 3.21 kg/m², and mean pain duration was 8.83 ± 11.52 months. Athletics, football, table tennis, and volleyball were the most common sports. Pain was most frequently reported in the head (18.5%), lower back (15.7%), knee (13.9%), and neck (9.3%). Significant differences were observed in activity-related VAS scores (w = -2.603; P = .009), pain neurophysiology knowledge (w = -3.011; P = .003), pain catastrophizing—helplessness (w = -2.348; P = .019), magnification (w = -2.183; P = .029), and total score (w = -2.670; P = .008). Conclusion: Pain neuroscience education may be associated with reductions in pain intensity and pain catastrophizing, as well as improvements in pain-related knowledge, in amateur athletes with chronic pain. Further randomized trials are needed to confirm these results and determine the intervention's long-term effects. Content of this journal is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.