# Nonpharmacologic Pain Management in FQHC primary care clinics

> **NIH NIH UG3** · UTAH STATE HIGHER EDUCATION SYSTEM--UNIVERSITY OF UTAH · 2020 · $776,658

## Abstract

PROJECT SUMMARY
Chronic pain is a ubiquitous problem and growing concern for society, contributing substantially to the ongoing
opioid epidemic. Back pain is the most common chronic pain diagnosis and the most common diagnosis for
which opioids are prescribed. Clinical practice guidelines and opioid-prescribing recommendations make it
clear that nonpharmacologic pain treatments are preferable to opioids for patients with back pain. Despite
unequivocal evidence, over-prescribing of opioids to individuals with back pain persists. Primary care providers
serving rural and low income communities face specific challenges to providing nonpharmacologic pain care
instead of over-reliance on opioids. Providers of nonpharmacologic care are often absent from these
communities and even if present may be inaccessible to patients with limited financial resources. Many rural
and low income communities are served by federally-qualified health centers (FQHCs). FQHCs often serve
communities at the forefront of the opioid crisis but too often lack options to provide accessible
nonpharmacologic alternatives to the patients they serve.
This Project describes a 1-year planning phase followed by a 4-year clinical trial that will compare the
effectiveness of different strategies to provide efficacious nonpharmacologic interventions to patients with back
pain seeking care in FQHCs throughout the state of Utah. The strategies evaluated are designed to overcome the
barriers specific to rural and low income communities served by FQHC clinics through innovative use of
telehealth resources. The randomized clinical trial will evaluate two interventions strategies, one providing both
a brief pain teleconsult with phone-based physical therapy, the other uses an adaptive strategy – providing the
brief pain teleconsult first, followed by phone-based physical therapy among those non-responsive to this
treatment. We will also evaluate outcomes related to the efforts to implement strategies in FQHC clinics in
order to provide valuable information for future efforts to scale effective strategies into other low resource
health care settings. Our clinical trial has 4 Specific Aims: 1) compare the effectiveness of a pain teleconsult
intervention with or without phone-based physical therapy for patients with chronic back pain in FQHCs, 2)
compare the effectiveness of different 2-phase treatment strategies in which phone-based physical therapy is
considered either a first-line or second-line option, 3) examine the results for Aims 1 & 2 in pre-specified sub-
groups of patients based on baseline characteristics, and 4) examine implementation outcomes of the pain
teleconsult including acceptability, adoption, feasibility and fidelity.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10156594
- **Project number:** 1UG3NR019943-01
- **Recipient organization:** UTAH STATE HIGHER EDUCATION SYSTEM--UNIVERSITY OF UTAH
- **Principal Investigator:** Julie M Fritz
- **Activity code:** UG3 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2020
- **Award amount:** $776,658
- **Award type:** 1
- **Project period:** 2020-09-25 → 2021-08-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10156594

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10156594, Nonpharmacologic Pain Management in FQHC primary care clinics (1UG3NR019943-01). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-23 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10156594. Licensed CC0.

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