Understanding how acute pain becomes chronic is essential to the development of preventive and early intervention programs to reduce the risk of pain chronicity. One primary research focus is to examine subgroups of patients sharing similar temporal pain trajectories over time and identify risk factors for unresolved trajectories. These projects combine biopsychosocial domains with sophisticated methodological approaches to understand this dynamic nature of the pain experience.

A secondary research aim is to explore the impact of physical and mental health comorbidities on chronic pain prevention, evaluation, treatment and self-management at the primary, secondary and tertiary care levels.

Finally, opioids are important therapeutic tools for the management of chronic pain. However, their use is controversial in subpopulations and there is a paucity of research examining the long-term effectiveness of opioid therapy in chronic pain patients. This research programs aims to investigate the impact and effectiveness of long-term opioid therapy in chronic pain patients. It also aims to better understand biopsychosocial factors influencing the course of opioid therapy. Examining how opioid therapy which often is initiated as a strategy to manage acute pain, evolves into chronic opioid therapy is key to improve clinical practice.