Canadian Journal of Pain

Digital Health and Pain Management

As in all sectors of health care, digital technology has revolutionized pain management. Digital health encompasses a broad and rapidly evolving area of endeavour that includes any application of information technology in healthcare. Patients are seen remotely by providers. Patient data, both objective and subjective, is collected and analysed at a distance. Patients engage in self-guided digital interventions without ever seeing a clinician. The breadth of this digital healthcare revolution and its impact on pain science and management needs to be collated and indexed.

Pain, and chronic pain, present an enormous challenge to global healthcare infrastructure, affecting billions worldwide. The scope of this problem vastly outstrips the ability of healthcare systems to provide care by traditional, in-person methods. Digital innovations in chronic pain research, assessment, and interventions provide new opportunities to meet this challenge.

Digital data collection, including use of electronic medical records and patient registries, offers access to enormous amounts of data to better understand individuals with chronic pain. New modes of remote data collection, including electronic momentary assessment via both self-report and wearable physiological monitors, provide naturalistic insights into the everyday impacts of chronic pain.

Finally, remotely-delivered interventions harnessing digital technology in a wide range of forms, from tele-health interventions recreating standard care remotely; to low- or no-contact internet-based interventions administered via browser or mobile applications; to innovative and gamified interventions using virtual or augmented reality, offer new possibilities to improve access and patient engagement with evidence-informed pain management approaches that can reach patients in all corners of the globe.

Researchers, providers, and patients need to be made aware of the scope of these digital innovations in order to harness them to improve the lives of individuals with chronic pain.

This special Article Collection in the Canadian Journal of Pain is focused on the use of digital technology in pain research and management. We welcome both research and review articles. Topics of interest include, but are not limited to:

• Digital interventions (mhealth, ehealth, telehealth)
• Collection and distribution of digital health resources
• New developments in therapeutic or experimental technology (e.g. VR, AR)
• Training for healthcare practitioners
• Remote data collection (e.g. electronic momentary assessment, wearables)
• Electronic medical records, data registries, big data approaches (ML and AI)

Submission Instructions:

All manuscripts submitted to this Article Collection will undergo full peer-review; the Guest Advisor will not be handling submitted articles. Please review the journal’s aims and scope and author instructions prior to submission.

Please submit your manuscript through Taylor & Francis's Submission Portal.

During the first step of the submission process (under the "Manuscript Details" heading), you will find the question "Are you submitting your paper for a specific special issue or article collection?" Click the radio button for "Yes".

Next, you will be prompted to select the "Special Issue or Article Collection name" from the dropdown menu. Choose "Digital Health and Pain Management" from the list. This will ensure that your manuscript is considered for inclusion.

The manuscript submission deadline is 15 February 2026.

If you have any questions about this Article Collection, please contact Krista Thom at Krista.Thom@taylorandfrancis.com.

Guest Advisors:

Dr. P. Maxwell Slepian is the Lead Psychologist of the GoodHope Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome Clinic and Transitional Pain Service in the Department of Anesthesia and Pain Management at Toronto General Hospital, Clinician Investigator at the Krembil Research Institute, Assistant Professor in the Department of Anesthesiology and Pain Medicine at the University of Toronto, and Pain Scientist with the University of Toronto Centre for the Study of Pain. His clinical and research focus is on the psychological interventions to prevent and manage chronic pain. One critical aspect of this is the development of strategies to scale psychological interventions for pain to make them more readily available.

Dr. Anna Lomanowska is a Scientific Associate at the Transitional Pain Service in the Department of Anesthesia and Pain Management at Toronto General Hospital. She received her PhD in Psychology and Neuroscience from the University of Toronto and completed a postdoctoral fellowship in Cyberpsychology at Laval University. Dr. Lomanowska has extensive experience as a researcher and educator and has held the position of Assistant Professor of Psychology at the University of Toronto Mississauga and Laval University. She applies her interdisciplinary training and experience to develop innovative knowledge tools and digital interventions to enhance access to evidence-based chronic pain management strategies and to improve pain care.

Disclosure Statement: Dr. Slepian is a Consultant for ManagingLife, Inc. Dr. Lomanowska declares no conflict of interest.