JMIR Publications

ABSTRACT

Black and Hispanic/Latino communities experience disproportionate chronic pain and are underrepresented in pain research. Transcutaneous auricular vagus nerve stimulation (taVNS) and transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) are promising tools for pain management. Therefore, it is critical to ensure that research using these tools engages all communities to make research findings more generalizable and reach all who may benefit. Lack of diversity in the research workforce itself is a key barrier to improving Black and Hispanic/Latino representation in pain research, and video-enhanced recruitment and consenting may be a useful tool to better engage Black and Hispanic/Latino communities. Using community participatory research principles in an iterative process, key stakeholders were engaged in 2 consecutive studies to create and then test informational videos on taVNS and TMS. The key stakeholders included neuromodulation researchers as well as Black English-speaking, Hispanic/Latino Spanish-speaking, and Haitian-Creole speaking people with chronic pain. The first study involved iterative feedback from stakeholders to develop test videos, which were then refined based on community member input. The second study was a pilot randomized controlled trial used to assess the impact of these videos on participant expectations for pain relief with taVNS. Results indicated that the videos were well-received, and there was no significant difference in expectancy scores between those who viewed the videos and those who received traditional brochures. This suggests that while videos may improve engagement, they do not unduly influence expectations, potentially making them valuable tools for improving research participation in non-invasive brain stimulation research. These videos will be freely available to help researchers to engage people from diverse communities.