Welcome to Finding Your Path
We designed this patient decision aid with you in mind. After all, this is your journey — and your voice and perspective are what matter most. Whether you’re just starting to think about reducing your opioids (tapering) or actively planning to taper, Finding Your Path can help you make decisions that work for your life, your health, and your goals. Your voice is important—your perspective matters.
Patient decision aids are tools to help patients and health care providers talk about care options. They help patients understand their choices about treatment options. This includes knowing the pros and cons of each option. For ease of understanding we will refer to this patient decision aid as a “guide.”
Finding Your Path has 7 short modules. Each module (including this one!) has the following sections:
Check your understanding: An interactive quiz to explore your knowledge of the topic
Learn/refresh: Up-to-date information and research to guide your decisions about managing your pain and opioids
Reflect: One or more exercises to help you think about where you are in your pain management journey and support you in considering change
Resources: Links to books, reports, websites, and videos for further exploration
Each module will take you about 5 to 10 minutes to review, plus any additional time you spend completing exercises and exploring resources. Feel free to review these modules based on what interests you most, or they can be reviewed in the order presented if you’re not sure where to start. We hope you will return to this guide over time — whenever you need insight, support, encouragement, or a fresh perspective.
a patient decision aid for reducing opioids and managing pain
Take your time
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Stay curious
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Use this tool to guide your journey
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Take your time 〰️ Stay curious 〰️ Use this tool to guide your journey 〰️
Check Your Understanding
Each module in this guide will start with a few questions to explore areas of knowledge and understanding of the topic. These questions will come before the Learn/Refresh section to let you see how much you know before reading through the module. They are meant to be a fun way to engage with the material, not a test. Here are some examples based on this module, take your best guess at the answers…
Learn/Refresh
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We created Finding Your Path for people who have been taking opioids for chronic pain for at least 6 months, though many people take them for years or decades.
The guide will help you think about all the choices you have when reducing or stopping these medications and help you have more productive conversations with your doctor especially if they are encouraging you to reduce or stop these medications.
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Help you feel informed, supported, and confident as you consider your next steps
Encourage curiosity — feel free to explore the modules, engage with the information and exercises, and see where they take you
Give you up-to-date information on chronic pain and the risks and benefits of taking opioids
Help you think about your goals and concerns related to opioids
Help you talk with your doctor about your pain management goals and your care options
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This guide was developed by researchers at Kaiser Permanente Washington Health Research Institute in close collaboration with patients and clinical experts. The study lead, Dr. Clarissa Hsu, has a focus on making care more patient-centered and supporting patient decision making. Our team members have expertise in and a commitment to helping people with chronic pain and ensuring safe use of opioids. Members include Mark Sullivan, Margaret Gorvine, Gwen Lampham, Laurel Hansell, Rebecca Phillips, Kayne Mettert and Sarah McDonald.
This guide is based on interviews with 102 patients and 27 clinicians, a 6-member team of patient advisors, a 12-member Decision Aid Steer Committee.
The team used a human centered design approach which included getting input from 14 patients and 5 providers in 22 feedback sessions.
Mike, age 62, back pain
“It took a couple years to get up the will power, literally. I'm trying to think what finally caused me to do it. I started to taper — it took a couple years — but I came up with this idea of doing a self-taper on my own terms, and when I figured that out, I realized that can give me the strength to do it. Because I didn't want to have it done to me.”
How this guide is organized
The 7 modules in Finding Your Path will walk you through key information and decisions that will be important in your journey. You can go through the modules in order, skip around, or visit some now and others later.
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Module 1: Welcome
Background about how to use this guide.
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Module 2: Rethinking chronic pain
New insights about the nature of chronic pain, based on the latest research.
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Module 3: Revisiting opioid risks and benefits
·Up-to-date information about how opioids affect your body.
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Module 4: Understanding dependence
A deep dive to better understand dependence and addiction and remove stigma and judgement.
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Module 5: Expanding treatment options
Insight into other strategies for managing pain — such as physical therapy, mindfulness, and alternative treatments — and how to add these approaches to your pain management toolkit.
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Module 6: Collaborating with your providers
Guidance on managing your care and having helpful, collaborative conversations with your doctor and other providers.
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Module 7: Tapering
An explanation of the key decisions you will need to make as you move toward tapering.
Each module has the following sections:
Learn/Refresh
Information and research findings that are key to making decisions about opioids and pain management, with a focus on providing the most up-to-date information.
Check your Understanding
An interactive to quiz to help reinforce key points in the module.
Reflection exercise
One or more suggested exercises designed to help you clarify where you are in your pain management journey, communicate your needs and values with your health care team, and support you in moving towards change. The exercises also help you gather information and insights from your own experiences, your family, and other trusted advisors. This section also includes suggestions for conversations or questions you can raise with your doctor or other trusted advisors about exploring different approaches to managing your pain
Resources
Links to books, reports, websites, and videos for you to explore further.
Colleen, age 69, neuropathy
“Well, the whole thing about opioids became much more public. I don’t think I even realized for a long time that it was all that bad for me. I’m kind of conscientious — I won’t take stuff that’s horribly bad — but since [the opioid] wasn’t effective that much, it wasn’t hard for me to listen to my new doctor … and she said maybe we should start backing off.”
Thinking about where you are in your journey
Making decisions about tapering can be a deeply personal journey. It often takes time and personal reflection to find what feels manageable and empowering. A tool that has helped many people is the Stages of Change Model (also called the Transtheoretical Model). This model proposes 5 stages of changes, that can help you identify where you are at with your journey and what you might want to do to move to the next stage.
Reflect
This reflection exercise helps you think about where you are in the Stages of Change Model by:
Asking you to consider where you might be in the Stages of Change Model (your “stage”)
Providing suggestions about where you can start with our guide based on your stage
Asking what you might need to move to the next stage
Click here to download the exercise worksheet
Consider these possible steps:
Complete the reflection exercise
Explore the modules in this guide.
Consider sharing this worksheet with your primary care provider.
Anne, age 71,scoliosis
“I'd been intubated 3 times. Most people don't live through that, let alone have much of themselves left afterward, so I'm really fortunate that I'm still here. This all happened within 6 months, so when I had 3 hospital admissions, then they said ‘OK, we're going to taper you off.’ I was good with it.”
Resources
Overview of the Transtheoretical/Stages of Change Model
Transtheoretical Model Video (stages of change): Nice summary about how this model can help you think about making a change.