Course What is pain and how should it be measured?

The course C219 What is Pain and How Should it Be Measured is being offered by the Graduate School of Health, Aarhus University, 2026.

Criteria for participation: University degree in medicine, dentistry, nursing, or Master’s degree in other fields and/or postgraduate research fellows (PhD students and research-year medical students).

Requirements for participation: none.

Aim: To provide a comprehensive overview of pain physiology and the principles and methods used to classify and measure pain.

Learning outcomes: 

• Understand the classification of pain and apply in the context of clinical cases
• Learn about the basic neurobiology and physiology of pain
• Be knowledgeable and get hands on experience on methods for evaluation of pain
• Be knowledgeable on evaluation of psychological factors influencing pain
• Obtain knowledge on neurophysiological correlates of pain
• Obtain knowledge on human experimental and animal pain models

Workload: The full workload of the course is expected to be 30 hours with a combination of lecture, group exercises, workshops and a meeting with a patient living with chronic pain.

Content: The course will contain lectures about pain physiology, pain psychology and how to measure pain and pain-related disability in for example experimental or clinical pain studies. Participants will work with real-world patient cases and gain practical experience with key assessment methods in interactive workshops. The lectures will be given by a broad spectrum of specialists from e.g. neurology, anaesthesiology, molecular biology and basic science, psychology etc.

Instructors: Páll Karlsson, Lene Vase, Francesca Fardo, Nanna Brix Finnerup, Christian Vægter, Jan Rosner, Sif Gylfadottir, Lone Nikolajsen, Lise Gormsen, Bente Morre Christensen, Rud Sørensen, a patient living with chronic pain, and more.

Venue: Aarhus University Hospital, Aarhus

Participation in the course is without cost for:

• PhD students, Health Research Year students from Aarhus University
• PhD students enrolled at partner universities of the Nordoc collaboration
• PhD students from other institutions in the open market agreement for PhD courses

Course dates:

• 23 February 2026 08:00 - 16:00
• 24 February 2026 08:00 - 16:00